Undone by Her Tender Touch (Pregnancy & Passion #4)(43)

“Are we done, Cam?” she asked bluntly.

He blinked in surprise. He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again and frowned. “I’m not sure what to say here.”

She took a step forward. “Let me make this easy for you, Cam. I love you.”

He went pale and flinched. His reaction spoke volumes. It told her everything she needed to know but some demon inside her persisted. She’d gone this far and she’d see it to the bitter end even if it humiliated her in the process.

“I need to know where I stand,” she said in an even voice. “One minute you seem to want me and we act like—we are—lovers. The next you can’t get away from me fast enough and you’re cold, like I’m some random stranger.”

Cam’s lips tightened. “I was honest with you from the onset.”

She nodded. “Yes, you were. No doubt about that. But you’re sending mixed signals. Your actions contradict your words. I need to know if I have a chance here, Cam.”

He started to turn away and it infuriated her.

“Don’t turn your back on me,” she bit out. “At least give me that. Face me and tell me why you can’t give me commitment, why you can’t love me. I understand you lost people you loved. I get it. But it’s time to move on. You have a child, a son, who needs you. I need you,” she finished in an aching voice.

Cam whirled back around, his eyes flashing furiously. “Move on? You get it? How the hell do you get it, Pippa? You think that by spouting some clichéd armchair psychology crap at me that I’m supposed to say, oh, you’re right, and then live happily ever after?”

“What I think is that it’s ridiculous to believe you can’t love anyone else.”

He closed his eyes and his jaw tightened. When he reopened them, he stared directly at her, his tone even. “It’s not that I can’t love again. I’m not one of these people who believes you only get one shot, that there’s only one soul mate out there and if you screw that up you’re out of luck for the rest of your life.”

Her mouth fell open because, of all things, this was not what she’d expected to hear. “Then why?” she whispered. “Why can’t you love me and our baby?”

He slapped his hands down on his desk and glared at her with eyes so dark and haunted that she flinched.

“It’s not that I can’t love you, Pippa. I don’t want to. Do you understand? I don’t want to love you.”

She recoiled, so stunned that she couldn’t even respond. She wrapped her arms around her belly and stood back, hurt spreading to every corner of her soul.

His words when they came were angry and frustrated, as though he hated having to explain himself, as if he hated admitting what he’d just blurted out.

“If I don’t love you, then it won’t hurt me if something happens to you. If I don’t love you, then nothing you do will touch me. I don’t ever want to feel the way I did when I watched Elise and Colton die in front of me. You can’t possibly understand that. I hope you never have to.”

Her arms crept tighter around herself, as if to ward off the unbearable pain of his rejection.

“You would shut out me and your own child because you’re too afraid to take that risk?” she asked hoarsely. “What kind of an unfeeling monster are you?”

He jabbed a finger in her direction. “You’ve got that right. Unfeeling. It’s exactly the way I want to be. I don’t want to feel a damn thing.”

Anger hummed through her veins, replacing the ice that had rapidly formed. “You bastard. You callous, manipulative bastard. What the hell have you been doing for the past months? If you were so determined not to have a relationship, then why did you continue to make love to me?”

His gaze dropped and guilt shadowed his face.

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Am I supposed to be all sympathetic and pet your poor damaged heart just because something horrible happened to you in the past? I’ve got news for you, Cam. Life sucks. It isn’t perfect for anyone and you aren’t special. Bad things happen to people all the time but they don’t become heartless jerks and piss on everyone around them. They get up, dust themselves off and keep on living. Maybe you never got that memo.”

“That’s enough,” he said tightly.

“Oh, hell, no, it isn’t. I’m just getting warmed up and you’re going to listen to everything I have to say. You owe me that much. One day you’ll regret this. You’ll regret that you turned your back on me and our baby. You’ll find someone you want to marry and you’ll think about the fact that you have a son out there who never had a father because you were a coward.”

“Somehow I don’t think my future wife would care for the fact that my mistress and our love child were in such close proximity,” he snapped.

The blood left her face and she took another step back as if he’d physically hit her. His face went gray and he started toward her as if he knew he’d gone too far.

She held up her hand to halt him. She was barely holding on to her composure and only her pride was keeping her upright at this point. This was pointless. They were two snapping dogs trying to hurt each other with quick, angry words. It solved nothing. It never would.

“We’re done,” she said in a cold voice. “I want nothing from you, Cam. Not your support. Not your money. Definitely not your presence. I don’t want you anywhere near me or my child. My child. Not yours. You don’t want us and quite frankly we don’t need you.”