The nausea swelled again with a vengeance.
“I don’t know what this is supposed to mean,” she said, reaching for a calm that had abandoned her the moment she’d stepped into this office. “No one gave me money to give you the DNA results. But you don’t believe me,” she added, voice curiously flat.
“What, Sophie? I’m supposed to believe you over my lying eyes?” he drawled, eyes snapping fire. “I wondered why you would show me the test when you were so adamant about protecting your research and sources.” He loosed a harsh, serrated bark of ugly laughter. “Now I have my answer.”
“You really think I would do this? Accept a bribe to trick you into believing you had a daughter?” she demanded, her own rage kindling, burning away the pain. For now. “For what? Why would I do that?”
“You’re a reporter, Sophie. I don’t know. An editorial piece that could grace the front of your paper might be a very good reason.” A terrible half smile curved the corner of his mouth. “How would your editor in chief feel if she knew her star reporter resorted to underhanded tactics just to get a story?”
So much for the anger. Pain, red-hot and consuming, blazed a path through her. She could barely draw in a breath that didn’t hurt. But she wouldn’t allow him to see it. She’d given him everything—her trust, her faith...her love. And he’d shit over all of it.
No, he’d get nothing else. Most definitely not her tears or her pride. Fuck him.
“I don’t know why I’m so surprised,” she said, jerking her chin higher. “This is what you wanted. What you were waiting on. And that email is just the convenient excuse.”
“Should I know what you’re referring to?” he asked, the man who’d made her laugh, made her cry out in the most unimaginable pleasure, gone. And in his place stood the man of ice she’d originally met those weeks ago.
“You’re so transparent, Joshua,” she murmured, shaking her head. “You’ve just been waiting for me to screw up. To disappoint you. To leave you. Just like everyone else. But the sad part of it is I wouldn’t have. I would’ve stayed by your side for as long as you asked. Longer. But you can’t trust that. You can’t possibly believe someone would put you first, would love you enough to never abandon or hurt you.”
“Sophie,” he growled, but she cut him off with a slash of her hand.
“No. You would rather self-sabotage and destroy what we had, what we could’ve had if you’d just let me love you and let yourself love. Instead, you would accuse me of something so horrible, so cruel that it’s beneath me and definitely beneath you. You’re nothing but a coward, Joshua Lowell.” She shoved off the desk, silently promising her legs they could crumble later once she was in her car and away from this place, this man. But not now. “You’ve been running scared for so long that you can’t even recognize when someone is running toward you and with you, not from you.”
Pivoting, she focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not stumbling. Concentrated on just getting away. Even as part of her hoped, prayed he would call her name. Apologize. Take back the ugliness that had breathed in this office.
But he didn’t. And another part of her broke.
As she reached the door, she paused.
Without looking back over her shoulder, she grabbed the doorjamb and stared straight ahead into the dim outer office.
“I love you, Joshua. When I didn’t believe in it anymore, you showed me it could exist again for me. I don’t regret that. But I do regret that you would rather hold on to the past than my heart. And for that, I pity you.”
She pulled the door closed behind her.
Closing it on him...and who they could’ve been.
Eleven
“Well, if it isn’t Joshua Lowell. Slumming it.” Joshua glanced up from his whiskey to see a tall, lean but muscular man with dark brown hair and blue eyes sink down onto the stool next to his. “To what do we owe this honor?”
Ignoring the man and his irritating smirk, Joshua returned to his drink and stared blindly at the flat-screen television overhead, where a basketball game he couldn’t care less about played. But anything was better than his empty, lonely apartment. Everywhere he looked, memories of Sophie bombarded him. In his living room. On his rug. In his kitchen. In his bed. It’d been only four hours since she’d left his office, her words ringing in the air long after she’d left.
I love you, Joshua... I do regret that you would rather hold on to the past than my heart. And for that, I pity you.
She loved him. How could she? He’d warned her he didn’t do relationships. Didn’t do happily-ever-afters. She’d called him a coward, but he had his reasons. And they were good reasons. They were...
Damn. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, pinching it, before lifting the tumbler to his mouth for another sip.
Yeah, even boring games, the din of conversation and subpar alcohol was better than the memories as his only company. Still, he thought while he glanced at the guy next to him as he called the bartender by name and ordered a beer, that didn’t mean he wanted to be chatted up by a stranger with a chip on his shoulder. That smart-ass greeting had clued Joshua in that this man with his hard eyes and harder smile wasn’t a fan of his.
Fuck. He’d come to this bar in the neighboring town for some peace, not more judgment from a drunken asshole.
“I heard the rumor you were here drinking, but I didn’t believe it. Daryl, get another round for Mr. Lowell,” he called to the bartender. “He looks like he could use it.”
“No, thank you,” Joshua told Daryl. “I’m good with what I have here.”
“What? My
