The ER's Newest Dad

The skin pulled tight over her pale face. She shook her head again. “Surely you didn’t believe I’ve spent the last five years waiting for you to grow up?”

“My growing up wasn’t the issue.” Wanting to expand his learning experiences hadn’t been childish or immature. He’d been a man given an amazing opportunity and he’d taken it. Their relationship had been strained with her sudden desire to walk down the aisle and him knowing he wasn’t ready for that, not at that point in his career and life. “I know you’ve gone on with your life, just as I have. That doesn’t mean what is between us is finished. It’s not.”

After kissing her tonight, being swamped with all the old feelings but also new stronger emotions too, he was beginning to believe what was between Brielle and himself would never be finished.

“Don’t bring up this man you’re involved with,” he warned, before she could toss that in his face. “Because you don’t love him.”

Twisting in her car seat to stare more fully at him, her gaze narrowed to tiny slits. “How could you possibly know that I don’t love him?”

He pulled to a stop at a red traffic light then faced her, daring her to deny the truth of what he was about to say. “Because if you were in love with him you wouldn’t have kissed me. Not at all and certainly not with that passion.”

“You’re wrong,” she countered, her smile scaring him. “I love him more than I’ve ever loved any man, anyone. He’s my whole world.”

Truth echoed from each word she spoke.

Ross stared at her, unable to label the crushing sensation in his chest. Denial shot through him. Strong denial. “No, you don’t. Maybe you think you do, but you don’t. You’ve not changed that much. You wouldn’t kiss me if you were in love with another man. You aren’t the type of woman to do that.”

A need as potent as any as he’d ever felt hit him. A need to feel her lips against his, to reassure himself of exactly what he’d felt when he’d kissed her. No way had he imagined the emotion zapping back and forth between them when their bodies had touched.

That hadn’t been just physical. He’d felt … more.

He leaned forward, intent on reminding her of those emotions, but she put her hand up, shook her head.

“Don’t.”

“Scared?”

“Of you?” She laughed but without any humor. “You won’t hurt me, Ross. Not ever again, because I won’t let you.”

Was that what she thought he wanted?

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

“I doubt you meant to hurt me last time either.”

Her barb stuck deep. “But I did hurt you.”

It wasn’t really a question, but she answered anyway, her expression holding steady except for the slightest quiver of her lower lip. He hated that he’d caused the pain that lay behind that quiver.

“What do you think?”

That he’d been an idiot to leave this woman when she’d loved him with all her heart and had made him happier than he recalled being at any other time during his life.

“I loved you, Ross.” Her voice was loaded with emotion. “And I believed you felt the same about me, that we would be spending the rest of our lives together. Of course it hurt when you left.”

She’d loved him. His ribcage clamped down around his lungs at her heartfelt admission. He’d known she had, had heard her say the words in the past, but that had been in the past. He hadn’t heard those words from her lips in five long years. She’d thought they were going to spend the rest of their lives together? She’d been ready for that then? In the midst of whatever relationship crisis they’d been going through she’d thought wedding bells would fix everything?

“Is that why you went crazy with bridal magazines and talking about getting married all the time?” he mused.

Shock dawned into realization in her golden-brown gaze. “That’s why you left? Because I started talking about getting married and you had cold feet because you weren’t in love with me and didn’t want to marry me?”

“Regardless of how we felt about each other, we weren’t ready for marriage.”

“You never said you loved me,” she reminded him, her voice catching. “Not a single time during the two years we were together did you ever say you loved me.”

She had him there. He hadn’t ever told any woman that he loved her, not even Brielle.