She tried to placate herself with alternative scenarios. What if the situation was reversed? What if it was Penelope who’d returned and Steve had slept with her? How would Katie feel?
Uh-uh. Unfair comparison. She couldn’t look for comfort in a situation that wasn’t real. Steve hadn’t slept with his ex. She had. It was she who had to choose either Tyler or Steve.
How? How, how, how? Impossible. She loved them both. Granted, she might not actually have a choice. Steve might hate her by now but she refused to be with Tyler because Steve didn’t want her. And she refused to be with Steve when Tyler was the one she ached for.
At 6:53 she was finally rewarded with the distant roar of a motorbike. Relief mingled with fear. Tyler was back, and now she had to make up her mind. She couldn’t leave two men dangling at her indecision. She had to choose one even though she wanted them both.
Although she’d waited the whole day she wasn’t ready for him when he walked inside. The stress of the preceding eleven hours of silence had gnawed at her nerves. Tyler’s clothing did not assuage her anxiety one bit. He was dressed in a trendy, pinstriped black suit which meant he hadn’t spent the day jumping from airplanes, out of mobile-phone range. he’d spent it at work.
She was suddenly, inexplicably, blinded by rage.
“Work?” she snapped. “You’ve been at work all this time? That’s why you haven’t answered my calls? I’ve been desperately trying to contact you, and you’ve been at work?”
His voice was distant, and even though she could hardly see through her haze of fury, she heard him well enough. “No, Katie. I never returned your calls because I wasn’t ready to speak to you. I needed a little time and space.”
Who could blame him? She hadn’t left him with many reassurances this morning.
Still, she was pissed. He could have phoned. One miserable call would have been enough. Just one “Then you shouldn’t have come back.
You should have stayed the fuck away.”
He froze. “From your house? Or from Sydney?”
She snorted fire as she contemplated his question.
“Is that what you wish, Katie? That I’d never come back?” His voice was soft but clear.
“Yes, goddamn it.” If he’d never come back, she’d never be faced with this choice. If he’d stayed in London, none of this would ever have happened. Her world wouldn’t be turned upside down. She could be happy.
No, she couldn’t. Without him she could never be altogether happy.
She dropped her head in her hands, and the fury drained out of her. “I wish… I wish you’d never left in the first place. None of this would ever have happened if you’d just stayed.” She lifted her head and blinked. “Now I’m forced to choose between two…”
Her vision cleared and she saw his face properly for the first time.
The sight left her gaping in horror. His eye wasn’t black yet. By morning it would be. It was swollen half-shut and looked angry and raw.
“Oh dear God!” She pressed her hand over her heart. “What happened to you?”
Tyler sighed. “Your fiancé happened.”
Katie’s jaw dropped open farther. Steve might be built, but he was not a violent man. Despite all his threats, the closest to aggression he ever got was punching his arm in the air in exuberance.
“Are are you okay?” She walked over, tilted his head to the side and inspected the injury. God, touching him was impossible. She wanted to press her body against his, forget about his injury and draw his mouth to hers. She wanted to tear their clothes off and make wild and savage love to him.
She wouldn’t. She had to sort out the mess that her life had become before she slept with either him or Steve again.
“I can’t say being beaten up was the most fun I’ve ever had.” He winced as she gently prodded his puffy flesh, feeling for broken bones.
There weren’t any. Broken hearts perhaps, but no broken bones.
“What did you say to him?” She almost didn’t want to know.
“I told him the truth.”
Her ribs constricted. Please don’t let him have mentioned last night. “All of it?”
He gave her a distorted smile. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe.”
She did not feel relief of any kind. The secret may be safe for now, but she still had to share it with Steve. “What exactly did you tell him?”
“Everything else.”
Everything? Good lord! Even his risk for developing Huntington Disease? “How had Steve responded?”
He didn’t give her a chance to ask. “Including the fact that I want you back.”
Oh God. “And he… And he decked me.”
She bit her lip, imagining Steve’s wrath. “Did you hit him?”
“No.” He grimaced. “But I wanted to.”
The heat from his body radiated outwards, enveloping her. “Tyler…”
she began, but he cut her off.
“Steve isn’t the only one with a right to be mad. He’s not the only one who’s been hurt. He’s engaged to the woman I love, for fuck’s sake.
I didn’t just want to hit him.” He paused to take a deep breath. “I wanted to take him apart limb by limb.”
“You’re upset.” Her words sounded grimly inane against the heat of Tyler’s outburst.
“You’re damn right I’m upset.” He pulled away from her. “Have you decided yet? Between me and Steve?”
She cringed. His voice was so aloof. “I… No.”
Tyler’s temper flared. “Today I ended my friendship with Steve, and for what? For your uncertainty? For your promises to another man?” A muscle ticked in his cheek. “Damn it, Katie. I know this is hard on you. I know the last thing you want is to cause Steve pain. It’s the last thing I want too. But you and I? This is our time. It’s our chance to be together. Please, don’t throw it away. Please.”
Katie felt cold. So very, very cold. “It’s not that simple,” she whispered.
“Of course it’s not.” As quickly as his anger had descended, it lifted, leaving only a quiet desperation in his eyes. The decision must be eating you up inside. “It’s tearing me up too. Ripping out my heart. I’ve lost Steve, Katie. I can’t stand the idea of losing you as well. Not now when we’ve just found each other again.”
A whimper rose in her throat. Knowing Tyler was back, knowing she loved him and she was committed to someone else hurt. It hurt like the devil. She wanted to take him in her arms, kiss him and hold on to him forever. She wanted to, desperately, but she wouldn’t. Not while she was engaged to Steve.
“I hate the thought of losing you, Ty,” she said in a strangled voice.
She reached up to touch his cheek, thought better of it and let her hand flutter uselessly in midair. “I want you so much it terrifies me.
Every time I see you or think about you, my heart fills with this urgency to clutch you and never let go. I’m marrying someone else, and more than anything in the whole world I want you.”
“Damn it, Katie! You can have me. I’m yours. There is nowhere else on earth I want to be than with you.”
“I want it too,” she whispered. “I love you. More…” Her voice broke on a dry sob. “More than anything.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at him. “But I’m with Steve.”
Even with his eye swollen shut, she could see the coarse emotion the love and longing in his expression.
And as clearly as she could read his feelings, she suddenly understood her own. She finally knew what she had to do.
She took another deep breath and stepped back.
“Katie,” he rasped. “Where are you going?”
The only place she could go. “I have to find him.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, Ty. Now.” Her body ached to fall back into Tyler’s arms. But she couldn’t. She had to talk to her fiancé.
“Don’t go.” His voice was oh-so quiet.
“He’s hurting,” she told him. “I have to stop his pain.” She had to stop all of their pain. The lies and the deception had to end. She’d made her choice, and now she had to tell Steve. She owed it to him.
“What about us?” Tyler asked. “We’re also hurting.”
“I know we are, Ty. That’s why I have to go to Steve now.”
Tyler stared at the door for a long time, listening to the silent echo of Katie’s receding footsteps. She was gone. She’d made her choice, and it hadn’t been him.
“I’m with Steve.”
Steve and Kate. Kate and Steve. Dr. and Dr. Sommers.
The agony almost brought him to his knees.
He stared in silent disbelief and allowed the hurt to wash over him.
He’d lost her. The future he’d finally allowed himself to believe in now lay in shreds at his feet. There was nothing left. Nothing. At a time when he’d figured he had his whole life to look forward to, a life he never thought he’d have, he suddenly had nothing. Not a damn thing.
Besides a gut-deep, persistent ache.
He’d even failed his sister. Steve and Katie were not splitting up.
Steve would have no reason to fight for Pen.
Fuck, if he’d only been stronger two years ago. If he’d only had the courage to face his fears and had taken the test then. Or face his cowardice and tell Katie the truth. None of this would have happened.
He’d never have left.
Katie would never have turned to Steve. Steve would never have proposed to Katie.
Tyler would never have returned to rip their worlds and their friendships apart.
There was only one thing to do now. Only one way to fix this mess he’d created. He had to get the hell out of Katie’s house. Out of her life. He’d fucked over Steve and Katie enough. It was time to move on and to give them the space and the freedom to continue with their relationship. The relationship they’d forged in his absence. Katie and Steve were getting married, and as much as he wished it weren’t real, it was. He couldn’t stand in their way any longer.
Tyler packed a bag, climbed onto his motorcycle and took off. he’d walked away from Katie before. He could not believe he was leaving again.
Steve opened the door on the first knock. After uselessly trying to track him down the whole day, she couldn’t believe he was home.
He smiled slightly when he saw her. “You could have used your key.”
She could have. “I… It didn’t seem right under the circumstances.”
He nodded and stepped aside to let her in. Then he closed the door and leaned against it, regarding her from a distance. He never said anything. He simply watched her expression carefully.
She shifted beneath the scrutiny of his gaze. “Steve…” Before she had a chance to finish, he cut across the room, pulled her into his arms and kissed her. His mouth was demanding. It searched hers, probed for answers to unasked questions. His lips were hot and intense. He held his body taut. Muscle rippled through his arms as he tightened them around her, drawing her in closer. He deepened the kiss. Sought the truth and denied her the opportunity to hide it.
She clung to him, kissing him back. Her hands gripped his shoulders, terrified to let go. Dear Lord, she adored this man. Loved him. Did he know that? Could she convey the sincerity of her feelings in one kiss?
After an eternity, Steve pulled away. He took a shaky breath and nodded with a sad smile. “It’s over for us, isn’t it?”
“I…” Her voice caught in her throat. “Yes.”
“You still love him.”
She took in the stillness of his stance and the uncertainty in his eyes. Her heart broke just a little. “I never stopped.”
He sucked in his cheeks before stepping away from her. “What was I? A distraction until he came home?”
“Never,” she cried vehemently. There was a lot she’d have trouble telling him, but not this. “You were you are my best friend. The man who caught me when I fell. You’re my rock.”
He folded his arms across his chest, putting a little more distance between them.
“You built my dream, Steve, and you saved me from my nightmare. I love you.”
It was the absolute truth. “I thought no, I hoped, you could be my husband as well.”
Steve took no consolation from her response. “But I couldn’t, because in the end I couldn’t compete with Tyler.”
A bone-deep sadness suffused her. “It was never meant to be a competition.”
She silently pleaded for his empathy, yet knew she had no right to it. “I never imagined I’d be in a situation where I had to choose between the two of you the two most important men in my life. The two men I love more than anyone else.”
“But you are in that situation, and you chose him.”
“I wish it had been you,” she whispered.
“It wasn’t.” His eyes were unforgiving.
Sure as someone had stuck a dagger in her chest, her heart was sliced in two.
“I am so, so sorry.” Words could never depict the depth of her sorrow. “Not just for us,” she said in a voice raw with grief. “I’m sorry too for what I’ve done to you and Tyler. To your friendship. I… I destroyed it. I never, ever thought it possible to destroy something that was indestructible.”
Steve grabbed the dagger and twisted. “What did you think would happen? Tyler would come home knowing I was engaged to the woman he loved and we’d still all be the best of friends?”
“He wasn’t supposed to come home! Don’t you see?” she implored, desperate for Steve to see this from her perspective. “I never expected him to be a part of the equation again.”
He regarded her with cold eyes. “That’s why you agreed to marry me? Because you couldn’t have Tyler?”
Despair clawed at her lungs. “I agreed to marry you because I love you and I thought we could have a future together. I thought we could give each other what Pen and Tyler couldn’t offer us.”
He shook his head. “I knew you weren’t Penelope, Kate. It was never about her.”
That’s what she was trying to tell him. “Exactly. It was never about Tyler either, because he wasn’t here.” How could she make him understand? “He changed things when he came back. He made me remember how I felt. How how much I…” She hesitated. She couldn’t say this without causing him more pain.
But she couldn’t not say it. “How much I loved him. Because I did love him, Steve. Not in the same way I love you, though. It’s different.”
Oh Lord, she wasn’t making things better. “I tried…” Her voice broke.
She cleared it and started again. “I tried so hard not to let him make a difference to us. Tried to push aside my feelings for him and make us work.” She shrugged, utterly helpless. “I can’t anymore. He changed things, Steve. He came back.”