Page 80 of Bedroom Therapy

He’d carefully and relentlessly put the room back the way it had been before he’d first transformed it. The bed was up on its frame again—with the previous bedspread in place. The dresser was pushed against the wall. The candles were gone.

She stood staring at the transformation. Why had he done it? Because he thought she’d be more comfortable? Or was he trying to wipe away the memory that they’d made love here?

She felt too shaky to face him at the moment, not when tears were welling in her eyes. She was too fragile to take his rejection.

Then she firmed her lips. She was no coward. She wasn’t going to hide from him and hide from herself.

If he was going to walk away from her, she wanted to find out—now. But when she strode into the living room, he wasn’t there, and panic rose in her throat.

He wouldn’t just leave—without saying goodbye, would he?

Her stomach knotted as she spotted his luggage sitting beside the couch. While she stood uncertainly in the middle of the floor, the back door opened, and he stepped into the kitchen.

His eyes met hers, and they both stood for a frozen moment, neither of them speaking.

She was the one who broke the silence with a sharp question. “What are you doing?”

“Getting out of your hair.”

“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”

“I was going to write you a note—if you weren’t out before I finished getting ready.”

He was doing it again, she thought, fleeing instead of facing her.

But she kept that opinion to herself. “Why did you put my room back the way it was?”

“I thought you’d want me to clear out,” he said, sounding defensive.

“I think you could let me make that decision,” she answered, hating the strident note in her voice. It had been less than a week since this man had walked into her life, but she’d thought something important was happening between them. Now she was struggling with the crushing disappointment that it had just been wishful thinking.

Still, she wasn’t going to just let him slink away. She was going to make him tell her what he was feeling—no matter how much it hurt.

“Why are you leaving?” she asked, struggling to hold her voice steady.

He ran his hand through his hair in a quick, uneasy gesture. That small sign gave her a kernel of hope that he wasn’t as indifferent as he’d sounded. “Isn’t it obvious?” he said.

“Not to me,” she managed to say. “I’d like you to explain.”

His face turned hard. “All right. If you need to hear me state the obvious. You were kidnapped, and it was my damn fault. I left you alone when I should have been here. I understand why you don’t want to have anything more to do with me.”

“What?” she gasped, hardly able to believe what she’d just heard.

“I was stupid enough to make the same mistake twice. I told you, a kidnapper came after my wife because of a case I was on. I vowed I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you. But that’s not the way it turned out.”

Suddenly, she had a lot better idea of what was going on in his mind. “Your wife left you,” she said softly.

“That’s right.”

“And you assumed I was going to react the way she did. You were walking out before I could tell you to leave.”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s why you put the bedroom back the way it was. You were erasing your presence from the house.”

He gave a tight nod.

“You know, when people don’t communicate with each other, some whopping misunderstandings can result,” she said in an even voice. “You were acting cold and distant. And from my point of view, it looked like you were leaving because you couldn’t stand the thought of being with a woman who was damaged goods.”

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