“Is that all you have to say?” Anger bubbled up unexpectedly as she unclipped the seat belt and twisted to face him. “Aren’t you even interested enough to ask me why?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw and his gaze dropped to the dashboard. “Would it make any difference?”
It might, if you could be bothered.
He was going to get it anyway. “You’re insistent about leaving. You’ve said over and over again that after today it’s over. That’s it, finito—”
“We agreed that’s how it would be.”
Her fury grew at his attempt to calm her, brush her off. “Well, I was stupid to go along with it, stupid to think I could make you change your mind. Stupid to find myself in a situation where I’m going to have my heart ripped out and discarded like a piece of trash.”
“That’s not fair—”
“None of this is fair, but there’s no way I can play out the final scene in public, Matt.” She fisted her hand and banged it on her knee, willing him to react. “CNN is just going to love it when your alleged girlfriend breaks down in tears at midnight.”
“It’s not something I saw coming.” His dark gaze met hers and for the first time, she noticed dark shadows under his eyes. It seemed neither of them had gotten much sleep last night. “I thought you were stronger than this.”
“Before today, so did I, but I can’t hold this charade together anymore. It’s hurting me too much. It’s humiliating and I hate you for it.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Piper. That was never part of the plan.”
“Well, that was a fail.” She roughly brushed off his hand as he went to touch her on the shoulder and felt a second of triumph at the shock on his face. “You know, for someone who’s clearly intelligent, you’re incredibly stupid. You run away from anything that provokes a feeling deeper than a paper cut. That doesn’t make you much of a man.”
His jaw dropped, but she’d started now and wasn’t going to let up until she had said what she needed to say. “Keep this up and you’ll end up a lonely old man with no friends, no family, and no hope or joy beyond watching your bank balance swell. There’s more to life than the top of the corporate ladder and the bottom of a beer glass.”
He stared back at the windshield, his neck and jaw rigid. “You should go.”
“Because you say so?” She laughed bitterly. “You should have said that to your father before he left you. It might have made you feel better about yourself in the long run.”
“Get out, Piper.”
That last remark was out of order, but she’d wanted it to hurt, to make him feel some of the wretchedness she was feeling, to provoke him into doing something that would kill the love she felt. “But you’re still a kid under all those tattoos and designer clothes, aren’t you, Matt?” He leaned across her and thrust open the car door. “A scared little boy who’s grown so used to being unwanted that he’s forgotten how to love.”
He purse landed with a clatter on the sidewalk. “Get. The fuck. Out.”
So that was that.
Over.
Finished.
The end.
Chapter Eighteen
He was surrounded by fragrance. And sensation.
Matt ran the palm of his hand over bed sheets that were soft and worn from being used and washed in a home instead of a commercial laundry. How long had he considered cool and crisp the best way for things to be? The answer was a very long time, ever since he had become cool and crisp and detached from all things sentimental himself. And the smell of the linen was new to him, nothing like anything he’d encountered at the Holiday Inn. Jasmine? Lavender? Whatever it was, it was feminine and felt like…felt like being cherished and cared for.
The lingering aroma of a roast chicken dinner followed by apple pie clung to the bedroom upholstery, along with a thousand other homemade meals and laundry loads. Furniture polish, old dried flowers, and the slightest hint of rose air freshener. It should repulse him, but it didn’t. It made him want to curl up under the old feather quilt and cry. Cry for his little dog. Cry for the father that never wanted him. Cry for all the things he never had and never would however much money he made.
He blinked away the fuzz that had suddenly blurred his vision and gazed at the things around him in that tiny attic bedroom. Photographs, school projects made from cereal boxes, and bits of other crap, a Rubik’s cube… All that shit, she’d kept it, things that trapped dust and memories and stopped you moving on with your life. Things that should be in the garbage dumpster like Stanley fucking Saunders.
But this stuff wasn’t like Stanley Saunders. It had no meaning when it was all new and raw, but now…it made him feel…he wasn’t sure how it made him feel, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. And now that it had been kept for so long, there was no way he would see it trashed. Its age and the fact that somebody had cared enough to dust it every now and then gave it meaning. Hell, it added layers to his life that made him feel three-dimensional again. Maybe moving around all the time and having no place to call home wasn’t a solution, but he’d been so bitter that he hadn’t been able to see it. And comparing himself with his biological father was the next logical step as far as his subconscious was concerned. The shit he’d been dealt by that jerk wasn’t a hell of a long way off how he’d treated Piper.
Fuck.
He’d bet his life that Piper’s bed was soft and sweet smelling, the bed in her sanctuary that she’d never let him share. And she had been so right not to give him that. He didn’t deserve to take everything from her. He’d been such a jerk. Piper was his last chance and he’d really blown it.
There was a light tap on the white-painted wooden door, and his mother’s face appeared around it. “Morning, honey, what can I fix you for breakfast?”
“Mom?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I can’t believe I’m lying here after all these years.”
“Neither can I, but I’m so glad you are.” She swallowed hard and leaned against the doorframe as if she was afraid to get any closer. “You know there are so many things I need to tell you—”
“Can we talk?”
“Sure we can.”
“I love you, Mom.”
His throat constricted painfully as he saw the glimmer of unshed tears in his mother’s eyes. “I love you too, Matt. Never stopped, not even for a second. Just never got to say it to your grown-up, handsome face.”