Caleb drew to an abrupt halt. “What’s happened now?”
I glared at him even as I was desperate for some explanation that would mean that the only man who I’d trusted to be completely honest with me hadn’t goddamn lied to me this whole time! “Carissa.” The name was supposed to come out in an angry huff. But I just sounded sad and confused.
His eyes flattened, his features slackened, and he gave me that blank look I hated as he began to loosen his tie. “What about her?”
Indignation fired through me. “What about her? What about her?! How about the fact that she was your fiancée, Caleb? Mr. I’ve Never Been in a Serious Relationship with Anyone. You lied to me!”
Whipping the tie off, he kept his blank expression all of five seconds. Caleb started toward me, a flush of anger in his cheeks, his eyes intimidatingly cold. “I didn’t lie.”
“You told me you’d never been serious with anyone before,” I retorted as he strode right by me and into his bedroom.
I followed, ignoring the fact that he was shrugging out of his suit jacket. “Well?”
“I never said that,” he bit out. “I said I didn’t do serious relationships, not that I never had.”
Furious that he was trying to get out of this on a technicality, I yelled, “You implied otherwise!”
“Do you want tae keep your voice down,” he growled at me as he marched by me in just his shirtsleeves and trousers.
Where the hell was he going now?
The thought was answered instantly as he delved into the liquor cabinet in his kitchen and poured himself a whiskey. I wanted to throw it in his face! “You said you would never lie to me. And I stupidly trusted you.”
Caleb turned to face me. “I didn’t lie tae you, Ava.”
How could he be so calm? “Yeah? It was a lie by omission.”
“I’m not talking about this. You can either march that sweet arse back into the bedroom and take off your clothes or you can get out.”
I flinched like he’d slapped me. I was barely aware of the instant remorse in his eyes as I grabbed my purse and began to make my way to the door.
His strong hand circled my left bicep and jerked me around with enough force to bring me colliding against his chest. Once there, Caleb wrapped his arms around me, trapping me. “I’m sorry for saying that,” he apologized, his voice hoarse. “But I’m not a liar, Ava, and I won’t let you say I am.”
“We’re supposed to be friends,” I whispered, letting my feelings show in my gaze as I looked up into his. “You know everything about me. You know about my parents, about Nick and Gem. And now I realize I don’t know anything about you.”
“That’s not true.” He gave me a little shake, his gaze accusatory. “You know more than most.”
I immediately thought of Quinn. Confiding in me about his brother’s death couldn’t have been easy and I felt ashamed for momentarily forgetting that he had. Still, it didn’t erase my anger. “Then why didn’t you tell me about Carissa?”
Like I’d suddenly turned scorching hot in his arms, he pushed me away and turned around. I watched in confusion as he walked into the living room, running a hand through his hair in seeming frustration.
“I dinnae want tae talk about her.”
“Well, I do!”
He spun around and yelled, “Tough shit!”
I winced, frozen to the spot, because he was more than a little intimidating. I’d never seen him so furious and I began to dread knowing the truth about his ex-fiancée. It cut me deeply that she could elicit this kind of emotion from him. “Caleb … you’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”
Instantly, his features arranged themselves into a harsh mask of revulsion. “I hate the bitch.”
Shock parted my lips at the dark vitriol in his words. Now I really wanted to know. “Tell me what she did.”
“Why?” He strode toward me, his chest heaving with emotion. “Why are you doing this tae me?”
As I saw the desperation in him, my motivations changed in an instant. It was no longer about me and my feelings, but about him. For as long as we’d known each other, there had been this quiet anger simmering within him. I hadn’t acknowledged it before, always putting it down to whatever was happening in the moment. But it didn’t just surface in moments of frustration like our first meeting or my announcement that I was going on a date with someone else. It was always there. “Because whatever happened to you is slowly eating you up inside.”
He stopped, his body inches from mine, and stared at me with such pain I wanted to reach out and soothe him. What had she done to him?
“Ava …” My name sounded like it had been dragged out of him. It was a plea.
“You told me that Harper needed to talk about what happened to her. It’s time to take your own advice.”
Caleb exhaled a shuddering breath, and to my horror I watched his eyes fill with tears. “She killed my baby, Ava. She killed my baby.”
Just the sight of him, this big, strong man who made me feel so safe, in tears, in agony, so vulnerable, was enough to bring tears to my own eyes. And his words caused a sharp streak of pain through my chest. “Caleb.”
His whole body seemed to sag and he stumbled back toward the couch and dropped into it. Resting his arms on his knees, he bowed his head, breaking eye contact. “Carrie … We dated four years ago. We were together a year when she fell pregnant.” His voice was so hoarse, the words like sandpaper against rock. “I was happy. Thought she was. I proposed even though my family told me they had doubts about her. She was twelve weeks pregnant, and a day after saying yes tae marrying me, she went behind my back and had an abortion. I was dreaming of holding that wee person in my arms one day, of watching him or her grow up, being part of a big family like I had been. And she decided she didn’t want tae be a mum.”
He looked up at me now and the tears he’d been holding at bay spilled down his cheeks. “The worst part? She said she’d lost the baby when she was out shopping with a friend. She pretended tae be devastated for about two weeks, until her friend decided I had the right tae know the truth. When I confronted her, Carrie tried tae deny it at first … until she couldn’t keep the lie up any longer. I asked her why. Why did she do it behind my back? And she told me it was because she was afraid of what it would do tae her physically and emotionally. She said she still wanted tae have kids but later, when we were older, and even then she wanted tae get a surrogate and employ a nanny. Have you ever heard anything like it? That someone could be so vain, so selfish, so cowardly, she’d kill the life inside of her without talking tae me about her fears. She would take my child from me, knowing I’d already lost my wee brother, she would add tae my grief. And then think I’d still want her. How the hell did I not see it?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I approached him. I kneeled at his feet and grabbed his hands in mine, needing to touch him. Suddenly I understood that the bitter grief I saw in the back of Caleb’s eyes sometimes wasn’t just about losing Quinn. It was about losing his child. “I’m so sorry.”
His pain was unbearable and in that moment I felt every stab of it myself. I felt like my heart was breaking. I wanted to hunt his ex down and destroy her for what she’d done to him.
“Wee yin,” he whispered, letting go of one of my hands to brush his thumb down my cheek. “Dinnae cry.”
I stiffened because I hadn’t realize I was, but at his words I felt the wetness on my cheeks.
And it hit me like a hammer to my chest.
I loved him.
His pain was my pain.
I was in love with him.
“How could she do that?” I wondered out loud. “How could she?”
Caleb didn’t answer. He stared at me, the tears having dried on his cheeks. He looked calmer. Finally he asked contemplatively, “Did you ever think about having kids? Before Nick and Gemma …”