Page 160 of Blood Stone
“Michael…” But nothing else emerged. Just that helpless plea, hanging there.
He turned to face her and thrust his hands into his pockets. “You don’t call me that in front of him.”
She clutched at her chest. “You’re leaving because I won’t use your name in front of Roman?”
He shook his head.
“I need to turn the lights on,” Kate said. “You may be able to see everything without them, but I have to see, too. I need to see this.” She looked around and spotted the switches and flicked them one at a time, until the overheads came on.
Garrett hadn’t moved. Now she could see his face and the details that made up his expression, she saw that it was surprisingly haggard.
The cold gripped her heart and gut even tighter and twisted. “Why are you leaving?” she demanded, trying to sound reasonable. It emerged higher and more strident than she wanted.
“Roman is the domesticated one, Kate. He loves you. You love him. I can see it all over your face.”
But I loveyou, too. The words were right there, right on her lips. She couldn’t say them. Not now. He would assume she was trying to bargain with him. And he would be right, regardless of how true the words were.
She pressed her lips together briefly to hold the words in. “I told the world that you were both my lovers.”
“And we were,” Garrett agreed.
Were.
He pushed a hand through his hair and pulled at the back of his neck, stretching it. “I don’t want to go. And right up until a short while ago, I didn’t think it would end this way. But I’d forgotten Roman’s true nature, Kate.” He gave a tiny shrug. “He doesn’t want me. Not really.”
“Of course he does! You’ve known each other for centuries—”
“He doesn’t love me.” Garrett’s expression was wretched.
She halted, flummoxed, her mind whirling. Then she caught hold of the first response she could grip. “What, are you three years old, Michael? Blind, deaf and dumb? Roman loves you! He said it once. It’s just for some stupid, macho, Byzantine repressed reason he hasn’t said it this time,now, in this century. But you have to know he loves you. He kept coming back, time after time, even when you guys aren’t supposed to.”
Garrett shook his head. “Maybe he loves me a little, but not enough to want to stay, or to ask me to stay. Women, he marries. You, he will commit to wholeheartedly. He’ll give his life to you, Kate, now you know him for what he is.” And he grimaced.
There was a muffled sound of a car horn. Garrett headed for the door.
Kate inserted herself between him and the doorway. “No, Michael, please.”
He brushed her hair back. “I love ye, Kate Lindenstream. I probably shouldn’t tell ye that, under the circumstances, but there have been too many secrets and they’ve done enough damage, so I can’t see how a slip of the truth could do any great harm.” He smiled. “I love ye and have since I kissed ye in that god awful beer garden. Ye’ve turned my life upside down.”
“I was going to destroy it,” she whispered. “As payback.”
Garrett’s smile broadened. “You did destroy it. Just not the way you thought. I can’t go back to what I was. Not now.”
She clutched at the lapel of his jacket in a convulsive last ditch attempt as Garrett opened the door. “Neither can I,” she said. “I can’t go back to what I was. Not now.”
He detached her hand. “You have Roman, now.”
“But I won’t have you.”
He kissed her hand. “No,” he agreed. “You won’t.” He let her hand go and shut the door behind him.
