“I don’t take it lightly either,” Sarah pleaded. “But I love you. I know we haven’t known each other for long, but this is what’s in my heart. I had to say it.”
Frustration nipped at him like an angry dog. Why was she pushing this? Why did she have to take such a huge leap? He was racing to keep up, out of control, with no idea where or how this would end. “I have feelings for you, Sarah. And they’re good feelings. I’m just not ready to go there yet. It’s too soon.” Did people fall in love in ten days? If they did, what happened to those people? Were they still in love a year later? What if everything between them faded and fizzled?
“It’s not too soon for me. Some people fall in love in a minute. There is no timetable.”
“But there is for us. You just spent the last ten days reminding me of a deadline. I don’t like the idea of being forced into something.” He hated his biting tone, but he saw her as his safe place, and she’d turned that inside out. She was sabotaging what was between them, just as she had in Miami. This time, she wasn’t making a unilateral decision. She’d pulled him into this one and forced him to participate. Did she not see that he’d already taken big steps with her? He’d never spent more than three days with a woman.
“Forced? You made the first move last night.” She sat up in bed and yanked the covers over her. “And you knew I was leaving tomorrow, but you took me to bed anyway, knowing that you didn’t have an inkling of serious feelings for me?”
“Of course I knew you were leaving. You’ve spent every waking minute of our time together reminding me of it.”
“And that made it easy to sleep with me. No pesky Sarah to worry about after tomorrow.”
“That’s not fair. I wanted you. I still want you.” At least he could say that much without reservation.
Oliver yelped over the baby monitor. Aiden tossed back the comforter and pulled on his boxer shorts. “I’ll get him. We’ll have to finish talking about this later. I don’t want to argue in front of the baby.”
Sarah rolled away from him. “Honestly? I don’t want to talk about it at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no coming back from what I just said to you.”
She wasn’t wrong about that.
Aiden stalked down the hall, his mind reeling. He’d been thinking he might invite Sarah to spend next weekend with them, and see how that went. He certainly hadn’t been thinking about labels. Love hadn’t crossed his mind. It wasn’t even on the map.
He opened the door to Oliver’s room. The little guy was standing, holding on to the top rail of his crib, unsteady on the mattress. He bounced up and down when he saw Aiden, squealing and grinning. He picked up Oliver and kissed him on the forehead, holding him close. Two labels he didn’t have to question were that of father and son. What they shared was love. But he wasn’t able to put a label on what he felt for Sarah. And if he told her what she wanted to hear, just to make her happy for now, and it later ended up hurting her, he’d never forgive himself. He might not be able to say I love you, too, but that was better than taking it back later.
He changed Oliver and brought him down to the kitchen, warming up a bottle and sitting with him on the sofa in the living room. He tried to read the rhythm of Sarah’s footsteps upstairs—there was no telling what she was doing, but she was busy. Was she pacing the floor, angry with him because he’d let her down? Was she rethinking what she’d said? Was she doing the inevitable—packing up to leave? He wouldn’t blame her if she were, no matter how much it might hurt. She was a vibrant and beautiful young woman. Any man in the world would be a fool to say no to her, making Aiden a class A idiot. Still, he couldn’t lie to her. He couldn’t say he loved her when he wasn’t sure what it meant.
His loose plan of asking if she wanted to date, although tantamount to picking out china for him, would clearly not be enough for her. Not now.
I love you.
Yeah, I’m not sure. Can we just go out to dinner?
Starting on dramatically different pages wasn’t a recipe for romantic success. It was a setup for disaster. She’d already been hurt by the guy she worked for. He wouldn’t hurt her like that—he was different. So maybe he was back to where he’d thought he’d needed to be a few days ago—preserve the friendship and set aside romance.
* * *
Sarah was about to wear a rut in the hardwood floor of Aiden’s guest room. How could I have been so stupid?
When it came right down to it, Aiden was a case of unrequited love. And although it stung like crazy, at least Sarah knew what it was. The heartache ahead had a name. A label. She could say with confidence, I left because it was unrequited love. He wouldn’t say it back to me and I’d already said it to him, so I had to leave. How does a girl come back from that? Her friends would answer, You don’t come back from that. You leave. With your head held high and your dignity in place. And Sarah could smile and nod, knowing she’d done the right thing. Even when the moments came when she was crumbling to dust on the inside, she would know she’d had no choice.