He stared at her.
When she spoke again, it was softer and the hostility was gone. “They shouldn’t get used to me.”
“Too late,” Prentice returned, watched as her eyes closed and felt his already heightened anger rising even further. “So this is it?” he asked. “This is what you’re going to do now?”
Her eyes opened again and he saw confusion.
“Pardon?”
“Slide into their lives, light up their worlds, slide out, leave me to deal with their disappointment while you send boxes filled with expensive presents from wherever you are, making certain they’ll be thinking of you even though they’ll never be certain they can have you?”
Her face filled with shock and her mouth opened to speak but she didn’t when his anger boiled over.
He let her go and took a step away.
“All right, Elle, if I can guide them through losing their mother, I can guide them through losing you, repeatedly. At least I have practice with that.”
He regretted his words again when her face assumed an expression like she’d just been struck.
But he was angry enough that he didn’t take them back. Furthermore, they were the f**king truth.
He watched as she rearranged her features but she couldn’t quite hide the hurt.
Then she whispered, “What do you want me to do?”
“Don’t leave,” he replied instantly.
Her eyes grew wide.
“You want me to… to… to move here?”
Christ, how had this come about?
But he knew. This came about because this was Elle and every situation with Elle deteriorated to something out of his control.
He glared at her for a long moment before he answered, “No. I don’t want you to move here. But I want you to stay until Sally’s fit again. Until there’s a good time to explain the situation so they know what you are to them and what they can expect.”
“What am I to them?” she asked him, now sounding confused.
He simply stared at her.
She definitely was mad.
When she continued to gaze at him in that baffled way, he enquired with disbelief, “You’re serious?”
“I –”
He tried to gentle his tone when he said, “Think about it, Elle. You lose your mother and, a year later, a glamorous woman who understands your loss floats in the front door baking cakes and telling stories about your Mum and varnishing your fingernails. You lost your Mum, Elle. If you had a woman like that come into your life, what would she be to you?”
Her eyes skittered to the floor; she examined it for awhile before she sighed.
Then she murmured in a voice so soft, he barely heard her, “I really messed this up, didn’t I?”
For some reason her words disturbed him so much his anger immediately evaporated. They were uttered in a way that made it seem she took sole responsibility for everything that befell her, Prentice and his children when practically none of it (but her leaving him the second time) had been in her control.
Before he could stop himself, his hand came to cup her jaw and his thumb stroked her cheek.
At his touch, her gaze went back to him.