Page 89 of An Unexpected Love

“Before ten. Don’t worry, I know it’s a school night.”

“I’ll have her back closer to nine,” Paul assured Charlotte.

“Okay.” She nodded. “Have fun.”

“I will,” Carrie said as they left, offering her first smile of the day. Actually, Charlotte had been talking to Paul, but she let it pass. Carrie was still upset about the school dance and had been cool toward Charlotte all afternoon.

Charlotte had just settled down with a book when there was a knock at the door.Please, God, don’t let it be Jason, she prayed, but apparently God was occupied elsewhere. Just as she’d feared, she opened the door and came face-to-face with Jason, boyishly handsome in his baseball cap.

“Hi,” he said, charming her with his smile. It wasn’t fair that a man should be able to wreak such havoc on a woman’s heart with a mere movement of the lips.

“Hello.” She’d been dreading this moment all day. “I was going to phone you later.” A slight exaggeration; she’d been planning to delay calling for as long as possible.

“Oh?”

“Yes… I won’t be able to go to the ball game with you next Saturday after all.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, making himself comfortable on her sofa. He anchored his ankle on the opposite knee and grinned up at her. “There’ll be plenty of other Saturdays. The summer is filled with Saturdays.”

It was awkward for her to be standing, while he seemed completely at home. So Charlotte sat, too—as far away from him as she could while still being on the same sofa. She angled her legs sideways, her handsclasped. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it any other Saturday, either.”

A pause followed her announcement. “Why not?”

“I… I…” She couldn’t look at him. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to see each other anymore.”

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t reveal his reactions one way or another.

Emotion seemed to thicken the air. He might not besayinganything, but he was feeling it. Charlotte was, too.

“Is it something I said?”

She lowered her eyes farther and shook her head.

“Something I did?”

“No… Oh, please, Jason, just accept this. Don’t make it any more difficult than it already is.” Her voice, which had remained steady until then, cracked.

“Charlotte,” Jason said, moving next to her with startling agility. “For heaven’s sake, what’s wrong?”

She covered her mouth with one hand and closed her eyes.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me,” he said.

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because!” she cried, leaping to her feet. “Everything would’ve been all right if you hadn’t been so…so nice.” She was angry now, unreasonably angry, and not quite sure why.

Jason stood, too, his gaze holding hers. “I’m not sorry I kissed you. Nothing would make me regret that.”

His words made it all so difficult. She wasn’t sorry, either.

Her expression must have told him as much. He relaxed visibly and reached for her, gently holding hershoulders. Slowly, he drew her forward. Charlotte had no resistance left, and walked right into his embrace.

She sobbed once, then hid her face in his chest and wept openly.

Jason stroked her hair and whispered reassurances in her ear, as if she were a small child needing comforting. In some ways, she was exactly that.

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