She was too concerned about him.
Looking for a way to make things better for him.
Charles turned back to her, his gaze so serious, her stomach felt like lead.
“They aren’t as important as you are.” His words were soft. And yet solid. Blessedly solid. Tears sprang to her eyes. She wanted to run to him. To hold him. To thank him.
But...she wanted to stand her ground, too. “I have to break our engagement.”
He didn’t speak.
“I need time to get myself back before I can promise myself to anyone else.”
“Do you intend to date other people?”
Cedar, he meant.
“Absolutely not.” But then...they were back where they’d started—her being pledged to him, without the formality, without the ring. “But...until I sort this out, I need to be free to feel, to not feel guilty for feeling, whatever I feel. I need to be able to know what’s real for me without feeling obligated to consider how what I feel affects someone else. I need to be single, Charles. I can’t be in a committed relationship right now.”
“But you can date...say, me?”
“Of course!” She wanted that. “As long as you understand that I’m promising nothing for now, that it’s only a date. And...” She hated this part, but knew it had to work both ways. “If you meet someone you want to, say, have dinner with, then you’re free to do so. And not tell me about it unless you want to.”
It couldn’t possibly work. A couple couldn’t go from being engaged to completely single, and then get married. Could they?
“When you determine you’re ready to commit, do you see yourself being happy with me for the rest of your life?”
She couldn’t lead him on. It wasn’t fair. But she couldn’t lie to him, either. “At this point, I do.”
He nodded and held out an arm to her, and she couldn’t resist. She needed to feel his warmth as much as he seemed to need hers. Snuggled beneath his arm, she sipped her wine, her stomach cramped with tension.
“I hate not being able to trust my own mind,” she said. “I hate doing this to you.”
“I’d rather it happened now than after we’re married.”
As though they were still getting married. And maybe they were. A dangled carrot, but one she was glad to see hanging out there.
“I’m so paranoid all of a sudden.”
“It’s only been a couple of days.”
He was right, of course. Her melodrama was proof. Sitting up, she put her glass of wine on the table. Saw the ring on her finger, and her stomach took another nosedive. She reached to pull it off, but Charles’s hand on hers stopped her.
“Might I suggest you keep that on? At least for a little while?”
She shook her head. There was no way... He didn’t get it... She couldn’t be engaged...
“For a couple of reasons,” he said, when she met his eyes.
She listened.
“First, selfishly, I’d like a little more time to pass between our engagement party and any kind of official breakup,” he said. “Just to spare me discomfort with my friends. Since, at my insistence, we made the engagement so public.”
His request was fair. More than fair. She nodded.
“And secondly, maybe the ring will help you as you work through whatever business venture you have with Cedar. You and I know we aren’t engaged—that you’re single and free. But while you sort things out, while you figure out what parts of yourself are real, what you can trust, you’ll have that small bit of protection.”
A ring wouldn’t stop the Cedar she knew from pursuing anything with her if he wanted to. The almost-kiss on Saturday night proved that. Unless she’d imagined he’d been about to kiss her...
Still, Charles had a point. “He might draw the wrong conclusion if he knows we broke up right after his return to my life.” He might think he was the reason. That she still harbored feelings for him. He could hardly be blamed, considering that everyone who was close to her worried about the same thing. Which brought up another problem...
“My parents,” she said. She hadn’t even thought about them. About the conclusions they’d draw. They’d been so worried about her. So thrilled when she’d started seeing Charles.
“We don’t have to tell anyone, Heather. At least, not yet. Let’s find our own way on this, give it some time—and then decide about announcing a breakup.”
He was offering her the best of both worlds. And that wasn’t fair to him. Unless...
“As long as you know, in your heart, that I’m not yours. We are broken up, Charles. I can’t worry about every move I make affecting you. I need you to think single. If you meet someone else, someone who wants to get married right away and start a family with you...”
His finger over her lips stopped the completion of her sentence, but the important words had already been said.
“I understand,” he told her. “And, in truth, if I meet someone who interests me, I will most definitely ask her out. If nothing else, it’ll show me that you’re the one I want—even if it means being a father in my old age. Or...”
He could fall in love, and she’d lose him forever.
The idea, while hard, wasn’t nearly as awful as the way she’d felt meeting with Cedar behind Charles’s back.
She laid her head against his shoulder. She wanted some more wine, but knew she should leave what was left in her glass. She had to drive.
“I’d better be going,” she told him—the first mention either of them had made about the fact that she wasn’t going to be sleeping with him that night as he’d been expecting.
“It’s getting late,” he agreed, gathering both glasses and the bottle of wine as he stood. He followed her to the door, the glass stems between the fingers of one hand, the bottle in the other. He waited while she collected her purse and opened the door.
She didn’t want to kiss him good-night. But didn’t want to just walk out on him, either. Glancing over at him, she struggled for something to say. Besides the “I really do love you” that was entirely inappropriate.
“Drive carefully,” he said, raising the two glasses to her.
“I will.”
She left, tears streaming down her face as she closed his door behind her and climbed into her car.
She’d done the right thing.
And it hurt like hell.
