wasn’t fair to tell him she’d wanted that with him. Not when she was the one destined to walk away.
“I don’t know what this could have been, but I’m not making another woman miserable by tying her to my side. I won’t go through that again, Lana.”
Lana would not cry. She would not. “It’s not my job to fix what your ex-wife broke. It’s not my responsibility to prove myself because she couldn’t.”
“I know. But it’s my choice to walk away before I get hurt. Before we both do.”
He was doing this with the quiet acceptance of a man who had decided he was beat.
Unable to stop the silent tears from leaking down her cheeks, Lana said in a hurt voice, “You’re not going to fight for us at all, are you?”
That flash of heat filled his eyes, that determination, that fire she only saw when he was holding her in his arms. “This isn’t what I want, gorgeous. But it’s the right thing to do. I can’t give you what you need. I can’t be what you need.”
“I never asked you for anything. I never wanted you to be anything or anyone other than who you are. I refuse to fight for a man who won’t do the same for me. Either you’re in or you’re out, Rick.”
He didn’t answer, but that was all the answer she needed.
Lana wanted to scream. She wanted to kick him in the leg for being an idiot. She wanted to cry, because he was breaking her heart into a million pieces, and she didn’t think she’d ever be able to glue them back together again in the right places.
But Montgomerys didn’t make scenes. They accepted tough news with decorum and grace. Sometimes the only thing to do was keep her head held up high.
“I’ll arrange for a flight home for you, dearest,” Lana said, because she didn’t know if he had the money saved up to get himself back. Chicago was beautiful during the holidays, but broken up or not, Rick was the best man she’d ever met. The last thing she would do was strand him at Christmas.
Not with someone he was done with.
Chapter 16
The hospital room was silent except for the steady beeping of the vital signs monitor. Lana sat in the plush chair placed next to the side of Killian’s bed, careful to be as quiet as possible. His eyes were closed.
“The surgery to stop the bleeding worked. I guess I’m not dying after all.”
Killian’s Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed hard.
“You almost sound disappointed.” Lana poured him a glass of water from the pitcher at his bedside.
Gone were his impeccable manners, replaced by a hand nearly crushing the thin plastic cup as it shook. He knew he’d badly injured his spine. Reminding him of that wasn’t going to help. Not when unshed tears glistened in his eyes.
“I can’t do this. I can’t watch them come in here and look at me like I’m…”
“Damaged?”
“Yeah. That.” He exhaled heavily. “You’re the only one brave enough to say it. The rest give me platitudes. They tell me I’ll heal, when they have no idea if I will or not. I see it in their eyes. They think I deserve this.”
“No one deserves this,” Lana told him softly. “Especially not you. But you’re the one going through it. No one can tell you how to feel, least of all the rest of our family. Focus on what you need, not what they say.”
“Is that how you’ve survived them so long? Tuning them out?”
Lana didn’t answer. Killian craned his neck around as much as the brace would allow. “Where’s Rick?”
“He left.”
“Left Chicago or left you?”
Her expression, so carefully schooled into calmness, still gave her away.
“So that’s it? You’re going to sit there with that fake-ass pleasant smile pasted on your face and let him go? That idiot’s in love with you. Whatever his reasoning, he’s not leaving because he wants to.”
“Would you suggest I make a grand gesture? Beg him to take me back?”
Killian snorted. “Well, what grand gesture could Rick possibly make? Here, surrounded by them? We all feel like we aren’t enough. Even Aunt Jessica and Uncle Langston. None of us are good enough to run this place. None of us are as skilled as we need to be. The only one close is you. You’re the prodigal child, succeeding when the rest of us are silently screaming at the top of our lungs.”
“That’s not true,” Lana protested.
“Please, Cousin. I’m the