The light and joy in her eyes made his heart stop in his chest.#p#分页标题#e#
This was the moment. He had to do it.
“But I don’t, Carrie,” he said in a low voice.
She tilted her head guilelessly, still happy, only slightly confused. “Don’t what?”
Pushing his arms against his desk, he rose to his feet. He looked straight into her eyes, like he was looking at an enemy over the barrel of a rifle. “I don’t love you.”
Her face went pale. “What?”
“You heard me.” He pushed the papers he’d just signed across the desk toward her. “I’ve just signed a custody agreement. We’ll share custody of Henry, but you’ll have physical custody. I have created an extremely generous financial arrangement for you both. Neither you nor in fact anyone in your family needs ever work again, if you do not wish.”
Carrie looked as if he’d just kicked her in the face. Her creamy rose-pink skin suddenly had the cold green pallor of a corpse.
“You do love me,” she choked out. “I know you do. You said—”
“It was a lie.” He looked away. “You’ll be better off without me, Carrie,” he said. “You and Henry will both be better off with your family. You will find a man who can truly love you. A man who will—”
Deserve you, he’d been going to say, but his voice cut off.
She lifted her chin. “You love me. I’ve felt it.”
He was going to have to be brutal. “You were right all along,” he said roughly. “I only wanted you when I couldn’t have you. But now you’ve become so unbearably clingy…” She gasped.
“I’m sorry, ma petite,” he said coldly, “but I don’t want a wife or a child anymore. I will always love my son, and I tried my best to love you. But I’m not capable of it.” Clenching his jaw, he looked straight into her face. “You need to find a man who is.”
She didn’t answer. She was visibly trembling. Her eyes looked huge in her white face.
“You…don’t want us?” she whispered.
It ripped his guts out. But he took the pain and forced himself to keep going, to do what was best for Carrie and his son.
“No,” he ground out. “I don’t want you.”
Hearing him speak those words was like feeling a dagger slicing past her rib cage, straight to her heart.
For the past day and a half she’d been so happy. When he’d told her in Paris that he loved her she’d been shocked, overwhelmed by joy. Every time she’d made him repeat the words that he loved her—every time he’d touched her and shown her his love with more than words—she’d been filled with a happiness so complete she’d thought she might die of it.
And now the end. He didn’t love her. He was already tired of her.
“Love always ends,” he’d said. “And it usually ends badly.”
Tearfully, she shook her head. “I can’t believe this.”
“I will always take care of you both,” he said in a low voice. He looked at her and his black eyes glittered, soulless and deep. “Because your happiness is more important to me than anything. More important than my own.”
“And yet you’re throwing us away?” she choked out. “Just like last year. Because I love you too much? Because I was clingy?”
“Yes,” he said coldly, turning away. Pushing the file of papers toward her on the deck, he glared at her. “Take it.”
Staring at the file as if it were poison that would kill her with a single touch, she shook her head wordlessly. If she didn’t touch the custody papers, if she didn’t have physical proof of his words, maybe she could pretend for a few more moments that this wasn’t happening—that it was all some kind of nightmare and she’d wake up in his strong, protective arms.#p#分页标题#e#
Coming around the desk, Théo forcibly thrust the folder into her hand. She felt it there, and her heart cracked in her chest. Some part of her had always known this would happen, even as she’d tried to believe her dreams might come true.
But she should have known. She should have known a man like Théo St. Raphaël would never love any woman for long…
“Now go back to America and your family,” he said brutally. “I’m done with you.”
Carrie didn’t even remember leaving the study. But suddenly she found herself outside, and the chauffeur was opening the back door. Numbly, she got in the car beside Henry’s baby seat.
“Where’s Théo?” Lilley asked from the front passenger seat. Then she got a good look at Carrie. “What’s wrong?”