Samantha could barely see as she fled up the staircase for the sanctuary of her room. After waking up, she’d gone downstairs in her nightshirt looking for Blake, surprised to hear Gavin’s voice and never dreaming they were discussing her.Oh, God. She couldn’t stay in Aspen any longer. Not now. This was it. She was leaving as soon as possible, come hell or high water.
She grabbed her suitcases out of the wardrobe and threw them on the bed. She’d always been neat and tidy and fast at packing, but who cared anyway, she decided, swallowing a sob. All she wanted was to throw everything in her bags and get to the airport. She was going home to Pasadena where she would lick her wounds. Beyond that she couldn’t think.
“Samantha?” Blake’s voice came gently from the doorway.
Refusing to let him see her cry, she blinked back her tears as she carried her sweaters over to one of the suitcases.
“Samantha, stop. We need to talk.”
She looked at him but continued what she was doing. “No. I’m leaving. It’s time for me to get out of your hair.”
And out of your life.
He swore low. “I’m sorry.”
She dumped her clothes into the case. “You’re only sorry that I overheard you,” she said tightly, then took a shuddering breath as humiliation and hurt swelled inside her. “You made it sound so…cheap. You made me sound cheap. As if I don’t matter.”
“You do matter,” he said, looking pained, but she knew better.
“Just not to you, right?” she derided, despair wrapping around her heart and not letting go.
“I didn’t mean to speak like that about you. I just didn’t want Gavin to know what was going on between us.”
She snorted. “Of course. How silly of me? We can’t have the great Blake Jarrod show any feelings now, can we? Not to his family and not to me.” It was never about his feelings anyway, and that was the hardest part to take. She’d dared hope he might at least have a high opinion of her. “Your words show me that you never even respected me as a person, Blake. And certainly not as your lover.”
His face blanched. “Don’t say that,” he growled. “I respect you. There’s no one I respect more.”
“It didn’t sound like that to me back there.” All at once she took a shuddering breath and admitted that she couldn’t blame him for everything. “But I’m doing you a disservice. You made me no promises, I’ll allow you that. You tried to warn me not to get involved with you.”
His gaze sharpened. “And did you?”
What did she have to lose now? “Of course I did. I…” She couldn’t say she loved him. She just couldn’t. That would be too humiliating. “…I thought we had something special.”
“We do.”
She shook her head. “We did. It’s over.” Suddenly she caught a subtle change in his face—a change that Carl hadn’t shown when he’d rejected her. She stilled. Her breath stopped. Did Blake have feelings for her after all? “Unless…” Dare she ask? “Can you give me one good reason to stay?”
Silence fell.
She waited. She couldn’t say the words but he must know what she was asking. If ever there was a time he might let down his guard…a time when he could allow her into his heart…it would surely be—
His face closed up. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t give you a reason to stay.”
As hard as it was to pull herself together, she recovered her breath. “That’s what I thought.”
“Sam—”
A hard laugh escaped then. “Too late to call me that, Blake. Far too late.” She held her head up higher. “Now, please leave me to pack in peace. It was good while it lasted but it’s over between us now.”
He stiffened, withdrawing into himself. “I’m really sorry I hurt you.”
She held his gaze. “So am I. And as horrible as this sounds, I wish I was capable of hurting you back.” It would at least show she had meant something to him.
Turning away, he stopped and said over his shoulder, “The family jet is at your disposal. It’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
The words stung her heart. “Thank you.”
He strode down the hallway to his suite, going inside and quietly closing the door behind him, shutting her out of his life. For good.
Samantha made herself move. She walked to her door and closed it, then went and sat on the bed and picked up a pillow to muffle her sobs. She figured this time she was entitled to cry.
Twelve
Half an hour later, Blake had showered and dressed and now sat in his office at the Manor, his leather chair turned toward the picture window. An early fall snow that wasn’t unusual at this time of year had begun covering the resort, and now a weak sun was shining on the surrounding mountains. Usually at this time he was back at Pine Lodge making love to Samantha. All he could think now was that she was leaving.
God, she’d been so hurt back there. It had pained him to realize how much. And yet he hadn’t been able to say the words to get her to stay. He’d known what she wanted, of course. She wanted him to say he loved her, but those words were no longer in his vocabulary. The last time he’d used them had been all those years ago to his mother—just before she died. He’d never said them again to anyone. He’d accepted he never would. His upbringing—his whole life since—had been about avoiding commitment.And now Samantha had to accept that, too.
Just then he heard a noise behind him and his chest instantly tightened. She’d come to say her final goodbye.
“What happened with Samantha, Blake?”
Erica.
He twisted his chair around, forcing his brain to work as he looked at the unhappy face of his half sister. Clearly she’d spoken to Gavin not too long ago.
He picked up a pen. “She’s packing to leave.”
“So you’re just going to let her go?”
He gave a shrug. “She wants to go. I can’t stop her.”
She came closer to the desk, frowning. “What’s gone so wrong with you two?”
He shot her a hostile look. “It’s none of your business, Erica.”
“You’re my brother. I’m making it my business.”
“Half brother,” he corrected.
“I’m so sick of this,” she snapped, drawing her petite frame up taller than she was, glaring down at him, standing her ground. “We have the same blood in our veins and that makes me a Jarrod, Blake. You’re my brother, like it or lump it.”
He stared up at her, a growing admiration rising inside him as he looked at this woman who was related to him, no matter how much he didn’t like it. The angle of her chin. The light of battle in her eyes. That stubbornness in her mouth. Oh, yeah. Erica was a Jarrod, through and through.
“Blake, for God’s sake, when are you going to drop your guard and let people in?”
He tensed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, you won’t let a half sister into your life because you think I might let you down like your mother did when she died. And you won’t let Samantha into your heart because of the same thing. You’re frightened you’ll get hurt.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he snapped. Sure, he wasn’t willing to get involved with anyone and lay himself open to hurt, but that was only because he couldn’t be bothered with the ramifications of it all. He was too busy to introduce any complications in his life.
“Then tell me why you’re letting a beautiful woman like Samantha walk away from you?”
“She wants to go.”
“No, you want her to go and she knows it.”
His jaw clenched. “This has got nothing to do with you, Erica.”
“Look at yourself, Blake. You’re deliberately making it hard for Samantha to stay. You’re pushing her away and abandoning her before she can abandon you.”
He swore. “Just stay out of this.”
“Think about it. Your mother died when you were six, so it stands to reason that you would be affected by her death. And what about your father? Donald Jarrod shut up shop with his emotions when his wife died, and the only way he could cope was by focusing on his offspring. He pushed all of you to be the best you could be, and none more than you as eldest.”
“Erica…” he warned.
“I suspect he wanted his kids to be fully reliant on themselves. He didn’t want any of you to get hurt. Not like he got hurt.”
“That’s enough.”
“So you effectively lost not only your mother when you were little, but your father, as well. Is it any wonder you don’t want to let anyone get close to you?”
He opened his mouth again….
And then somehow, without warning, her words began to hit him right where it mattered. But still he had to say, “What I want is not to listen to this drivel.”
Her eyes said he wasn’t fooling her. “People have their breaking point, Blake. Your mother’s death was your—I mean, our father’s breaking point. A person can do silly things in their grief. Everyone reacts differently. Our father turned to my mother, looking for solace. Who’s to say you wouldn’t do the same thing?”
“I would never want another woman after Samantha,” he growled. “Never.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
He stiffened and blinked. “What?”
She stood there watching him in silent scrutiny for a moment. “If Samantha died how would you feel?”
“Don’t say that,” he rasped, the thought slicing down through the middle of him.
“You love her, Blake.”
His head reeled back. “No.”
“Yes. Don’t let yourself realize it too late. You may never get a second chance.”
He swallowed as something deep inside him lifted up like a shade on a window and he finally admitted what was right there in front of him. He did love Samantha.
And right then, he finally understood the depth of his father’s loss. He still didn’t understand how Donald Jarrod could have shunned the children who were a legacy of his beloved wife, nor how his father had turned to another woman, but the idea of Samantha dying squeezed his heart so tight he could barely breathe.
He surged to his feet. “I have to go to her.”
“Thank God!”
He glanced at his watch. “She may not have left the lodge.”
“She’s already taken the valet car. I saw her leaving.” Erica made a gesture toward the door. “Go. I’ll make sure they stop the plane. And hey, take it easy getting to her, okay? We’ve got our first snow, and she’ll want you in one piece.”
“I will.” He was almost at the door by the time she finished speaking. All at once he stopped, conscious that he had to take a moment more for something else. He returned to Erica to kiss her on the cheek. “Thanks, sis.”
She beamed at him. “You’re welcome. Just remember you’ll have a few brothers and sisters who’ll expect your firstborn to be named after them.”