“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Liam…I can’t tell you how sorry I am. About everything,” she whispered.
“None of this is your fault.”
She laughed raggedly. His expression froze at the desperate sound.
“It’s all my fault, and you know it,” she whispered, staring blankly at the painting about her fireplace. From the corner of her eye, she saw him rise. She stood abruptly, sensing he was coming over to the couch to comfort her. His touch would shatter her. She turned her shoulder to him and walked several steps away.
“Natalie…what’s going on?” he asked slowly.
“This thing between us…it’s not going to work out, Liam,” she said, averting her gaze. She cringed inwardly in the ensuing silence.
“I don’t follow you. Why?”
“Do you really have to ask that? Your family has been changed forever because of me. Your mother must be furious. Deidre is going to be flattened.” She glanced back at him furtively. His face looked rigid with tension. “It’s not just that,” she whispered.
“What, then?” he demanded.
Her bark of laughter bordered on a sob. She waved her hand between them. “You and I together. It’s…it’s ridiculous. Surely you see that. We’re not…suited.”
“I couldn’t disagree more,” he replied stiffly. “You didn’t think so just a few days ago, either.”
“You’re wrong,” she said more emphatically. She ignored the tear spilling down her cheek. It was imperative that she make him understand this. She couldn’t bear to consider him furthering this huge mistake they’d made…the error she’d made. He was about to have so many new, unpleasant truths start to crash in on him. She couldn’t stand to think of him enduring that while he was still involved with her—the instigator of his unhappiness. “I’ve been thinking it for a while now. I spoke to my brother about it just before we left for Reno.”
She looked away from his narrowed gaze, fearful he would see the lie in her eyes. She had spoken to Eric, and Eric had given his opinion on his doubts about her affair with Liam. Natalie had refused to listen to a word of it.
“Eric and I agreed that what was happening between you and me was an emotional backlash, given everything that’s happened in the past,” she said, forcing her voice not to tremble.
“You and Eric agreed on that, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Look in my eyes and tell me that, Natalie,” he said, a hard edge to his quiet voice.
She inhaled, willing the pain in her chest and throat to ease. She looked into his eyes.
“It was a mistake, Liam. All of it.”
For a few seconds, he just studied her. A pressure in her grew, a wild need to fly into his arms and take it all back. It swelled in her chest when he turned and headed toward the front door.
She stood motionless for a full two minutes after he’d left, waiting for the pain to diminish. It eventually grew into a dull ache that felt like a cold, hard stone pressing against her heart.
Several days passed, and Natalie did the things she always did—she went to work, she went to a dance class, she had dinner with her brother, Eric, one night. She felt like a robot, though. Empty. Lonely.
Once, she’d given in to a shameful melancholy and gone to Liam’s empty cottage. She’d sat on the terrace, where they’d spent so many happy hours together, and she’d cried like the foolish child she’d been just one month before.
She’d once told Liam that he was worried she’d asked him to open Pandora’s box. That’s precisely what had happened. Surely on his solitary journey to Germany, Liam would realize that. He would see the truth of what she’d said when she’d broken up with him. The circumstances of their investigation had not only thrown them together repeatedly, but had created a unique, emotionally charged atmosphere; one in which he might mistake his sympathy for the victim of his father’s crime for feelings of desire and caring.
Now that Natalie was alone and had time to reflect, she could find no other good explanation for what had occurred between her and Liam.
Not on his part, anyway. For her part, it was simple. She’d fallen hopelessly, completely in love.
Eric had been right about another thing. Liam Kavanaugh could get practically any woman he wanted on the planet. He was bound to eventually break her heart. Perhaps it was best for that wound to come sooner versus later, so that she could begin healing.
Both Liam and she needed to start the process of healing.
On the fourth night after Liam had left Harbor Town, Natalie woke in a sweat. Summerlike weather had returned with a vengeance. The last few days had been hot and muggy. She considered getting up and turning on the air-conditioning, but instead rose and opened her bureau for clothes.