When he didn’t say anything after that, she glanced over at him. He was standing just inside the greenhouse, by the workstation Greta would have been at had Lizzie not told the woman that she needed some time by herself.
“Do you honestly think I’m capable of something like that?” he asked in a low voice.
“It’s not up to me to decide anything of the sort.” She refocused on what she was doing and hated the words she spoke. “But the one thing I will say is that the best clue to future behavior is the way someone has conducted themselves in the past. And I can’t … I can’t do this with you anymore. Whether or not any of it is true isn’t the issue for me.”
After patting down the new soil, she reached for her watering can and tilted the thing over the ivy’s feet. In another three months, the plant would be ready to move outdoors to one of the beds, or to the base of a wall, or to a pot on the terrace. They had great luck with this variant on the estate, but it was only good planning to have backups.
Wiping her hands off on the front of her potting apron, she turned to face him. “I’m leaving. I gave my notice. So you don’t have to worry about going back to New York.”
She had no trouble meeting his eyes. Looking him in the face. Squaring off at him.
It was amazing how clear you could become with others when you knew where you stood yourself.
“You really think I could do that to a woman,” he repeated.
Of course I don’t, she thought to herself. But she stayed silent because she knew that if she really wanted him to leave her alone, the insinuation would hurt his male pride and that, sadly, would work in her favor.
“Lizzie, answer the quesiton.”
“It’s not any of my business. It just isn’t.”
After a long moment, he nodded. “Okay. Fair enough.”
As he pivoted and went for the door, she had to admit she was a little surprised. She’d expected some long, drawn-out thing from him. A torrent of persuasion she was going to have to deflect. Some kind of I love you, Lizzie. I really do love you.
“I wish you well, Lizzie,” he said. “Take care.”
And that … was that.
The door eased shut of its own volition. And for a split second, she had an absolutely absurd impulse to go after him and yell in his face that he was a colossal fucking asshole to have seduced her like he had, that he was a reprobate, that he was exactly who she feared he was, a user of women, a lying, cheating elitist sadist who wouldn’t know—
Lizzie forcibly pulled herself back from the brink.
If that good-bye was anything to go by, whether she was in or out of his life didn’t seem to matter to him in the slightest.
Good to know, she thought bitterly. Good to know.
Here was the thing, Lane thought as he got behind the wheel of his 911. There were times in life when, as much as you wanted to fight for something, you just had to let it go.
You didn’t have to like the failure.
You didn’t have to feel really fucking great about the way things turned out.
And you certainly didn’t walk away from the shit scot-free, without being seriously damaged by the loss, crippled even.
But you needed to let that stuff go, because expending the energy wasn’t going to get you anywhere, and you might as well get on with getting used to the loss.
It was the one lesson his relationship with his father had taught him. Would he have loved having a male figure he could look up to, make proud, feel respected by? Hell, yeah. Would it have been awesome to not grow up in a house where the sound of loafers on marble flooring or the whiff of cigarette smoke didn’t make him run for cover? Duh. Could he have used some fatherly advice, especially at a time like this?
Yeah. He really could have.
That wasn’t the way things had worked out for him, however—and he had had to get used to it or go insane negotiating with a failure he was never going to be able to change or improve.
By the same token, if Lizzie King truly believed there was even a possibility, however slight, that he could have taken his hand to a woman like that? That he could have lied to her face about Chantal? That whatever baby the woman was carrying was actually his? Then there was no hope for the two of them. No matter what he said to her or how he tried to explain things … she didn’t really know him, and more to the point, she didn’t really trust him.
The fact that it was all bullshit? The fact that Chantal had cheated him, once again, of the woman he loved?
Tough breaks.
Whaaa-whaaaa-whaaaa.
Go ask Santa for a new father. Get the tooth fairy to bring you a new ex-wife.
Whatever.
Leaving Easterly in the dust, he hopped on the highway and doubled the speed limit on his way to the Charlemont International Airport—not because he was in a hurry or going to be late, but because, what the hell. The car could handle it—and at the moment, he actually was sober at the controls.