He took another hit off his cigarette. “Did you find yourself a wealthy husband? One that can afford to keep you in designer clothes?”
“No. No husband.”
He looked back at her, and asked the one question that had haunted him for three years now. “Why’d you leave like that?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, stunned.
“No good bye. No note.” He studied her. “I come back, and just find you gone. Mack said you took a cab, and left.”
“What?” Her arms came unfolded. She looked at him, stunned, and a little pissed. “That’s not what happened!”
“You know what, it doesn’t really matter anymore.” He tossed his cigarette into the distance, and turned to get back in the vehicle. Maybe he didn’t really want to know the answer.
“Like hell it doesn’t,” she snapped, grabbing his arm, and pulling him back around. “You’re going to hear the truth, damn it!”
He stared at her, and jerked his arm out of her grasp. He didn’t want her touching him. If she did, he’d loose it, and the walls he’d built to guard his heart, walls he’d carefully, painfully built, brick-by-brick over the last three years would come tumbling down.
“You left me!” she yelled at him.
“What?” He stared at her. What the hell was she talking about?
“That morning when I woke up alone, I thought you’d come back. I waited-”
“Evidently not very long, babe,” he interrupted.
“Mack called me into that room.” She pointed in the general direction of the clubhouse. “He told me you’d left, and wouldn’t be back for a couple of days-”
He interrupted her again, shaking his head. “No, Angel, I was back in a couple of hours-”
She continued, talking over him, “He said you told him to make sure I got a cab home. And to tell me it’d been fun.”
“What? I never-”
She kept going. “Guess your brother wanted to get rid of me. I wrote you a note. Left it on your bed. Did you read it?”
“There was no note.”
“Gee, wonder who could have gotten rid of it. Just like he got rid of me.”
Cole shook his head, trying to make sense of all this. He couldn’t have been wrong all this time, could he?
“Look, it doesn’t matter.” She threw her hands in the air. “What I need to know is if you’ll help my daughter.”
When he heard her say, ‘it doesn’t matter’ something inside him snapped. His look darkened, and he advanced on her.
She took a couple of steps back, and felt the vehicle pressed against her back.
He put his hand on the vehicle, and leaned into her, bringing his face to within a couple of inches of hers. “Don’t you mean ‘our’ daughter?” he challenged.
They stared at each other.
Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and she remembered the feel and taste of it. “Yes. I…I hope ‘our’ daughter.”
His gaze wandered over her face, stopping at her mouth. He stared at her full lower lip, and longed to run his thumb over it. He couldn’t believe she still had the power to stir him like this. Even with as much as he’d tried to hate her all these years. And now all he could think about was being on top of her, inside of her. He dragged in a deep breath. He couldn’t let himself think about that, think about her again. It would open up the wound again. So, he did the only thing he could think to do to protect his heart. He lashed out at her. “Guess I’d be the lesser of two evils, huh, baby? At least my body’s still alive and kicking, huh?”
“I’d forgotten just what a bastard you could be,” she whispered.
“Baby, the man I was? He was nothing compared to the bastard I’ve become.”
“Be a bastard then, maybe you’re beyond saving. But your daughter is not. If you can’t save your own soul, at least try to save your daughter.”
He stood staring at her. She didn’t know how close to the truth she was.
Angel closed her eyes, and took a breath. She wasn’t going to get anywhere like this, and she couldn’t afford to fail her daughter now, not after everything Melissa had gone through to get well. Angel wasn’t above begging. She swallowed, and looked into his eyes. “Please, Cole. I need you. Please, help her. I’m begging you. I’ll get down on my knees, if I have to. If that’s what you want.”
He looked at her with something akin to horror. He could hear