Sage stared at him, trying to process what he’d just said. “How did they throw us together? I don’t understand this.”
“You’d really have to talk to them, Sage.”
“I want to hear it from you.” But she didn’t need for him to tell her. The pieces were falling together. The reason she’d had to accept the offer for residency in Sterling, the reason Spence, only a few months later, accepted an offer that would put him in charge of her training. The party. The meetings her grandmother had been having with Martin Whitman.
They’d all thought she was so pathetic that she wouldn’t be able to find her own husband, so they’d rigged the game, placed her and Spence in each other’s path and lit a fuse, hoping there would be one hell of an explosion. Well, they just might get to see a show that would put the Fourth of July to shame.
“How long have you known about this?”
He looked lost as he searched for the right thing to say. “A couple of weeks,” he admitted, and the rockets’ red glare had nothing on her.
“Did you find it amusing? Was it all a game? Let’s get the poor little virgin a boyfriend. She can’t possibly attract one on her own. She was in love with Spence when she was a child, so throw a little gasoline, light a match, and watch her go up in smoke. Did you have some bets going on? Was any of this real?”
They’d all deceived her, all treated her like their personal puppet on strings. She’d been great in that role, doing exactly what was expected of her.
“I didn’t have a plan!” he exploded, throwing his hands in the air. “I’m in love with you—stupidly, ridiculously, till-death-do-us-part in love!”
Her entire body froze as their heated gazes locked. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to think.
Spence now spoke more calmly. “That didn’t come out the way it should have.” He began to take a step toward her, but she held out her palm to ward him off. This was too much; too many emotions were being thrown at her in such a short time. She was on overload and she had to get away.
“I need to go,” she said. She dashed to her room and grabbed clothes. She had to get out of there right now.
“Sage, don’t do this. Let’s talk,” he said through the door as she yanked her clothes on in record time.
“I don’t want to talk,” she said, flinging open the door and storming past him.
To his credit, he didn’t try to grab her. “Do you love me, Sage?”
That stopped her. She turned toward him, her purse in her hand. “I don’t know how I feel, Spence. You move at the speed of lightning. One minute you’re telling me you want to move in together, and then before I can even process that, you’re telling me that our families feel we’re meant to be together. And then you tell me you love me and suggest that you want to get married. I can’t do this. I can’t . . .” And it was true. She just couldn’t.
“It’s simple, Sage. You either love me or you don’t,” he said, moving closer but still respecting her very electrically charged personal space.
“I don’t know!” she said, her eyes burning. “I don’t know,” she said again more quietly. Panic was starting to rise. “Nothing is simple.”
“Just because someone else may have made plans for us, that doesn’t make what we feel toward each other any less real. I know how I feel, and I know that I will always want you. Once I make a decision, I don’t back down. I’m strong enough to tell you how I feel. Are you strong enough to accept what I’m offering?”
“No. I can’t do this,” she said, and practically ran to the door. She glanced back to find his eyes not angry but determined as he watched her leave. It wasn’t rational, but she was overwhelmed. Her once orderly life had just been thrown in total chaos and she needed to escape, to regroup.
“I’m not giving up.” Those words followed her out the door and to her car. She realized she’d left him in her apartment, but she didn’t care. Getting away was her only thought.
She took pride in the fact that she was organized, that she made her own choices, that even if she made mistakes, they were her mistakes. To find out that her grandmother had stooped to games to find her a man was humiliating. It also made her wonder if any of it was real.
Sage tripped as she walked up the steps to her apartment, and her short heel snapped, making her fall to her knee. The impact cut into her slacks and gave her a deep scratch.
“Son of a—” Managing to stop the swear word from coming out, she gritted her teeth and stood up. This wasn’t her day—not even close. Seriously grumpy after enduring a fifteen-hour shift and missing the last two meals, she finally managed to get the key in the door and open it.
She refused to admit to herself that her mood had been bad from the beginning, its gloom and savagery only escalating when Spence hadn’t been at work for the second day in a row. Christmas was only a couple of days away and she hadn’t seen him since she stormed off after their confrontation.
That’s what she’d wanted, to get away from him. She wasn’t going to be controlled. He was giving her the space she’d requested, and that was just fine by her. It certainly wasn’t the case that any action of his, or any inaction, was making her insides twist in two. So what if he was moving on? So what if he was back in Seattle? She hoped he stayed there. The prickling in her eyes had nothing to do with the fact that he might not come back.
Sage had always thought logically, had always been the one to laugh at those silly girls who wrapped their worlds around whomever they were dating. She wouldn’t be such a fool as to join their shallow ranks.