Page 62 of A Montana Fake Marriage

“I don’t?—”

Caleb waved a hand and shook his head. “Makes sense. Perhaps we’ve both been swept up in something we weren’t prepared for. What did we expect?” He forced a smile that tore at his mental state even more. “We’ve been staying in the same room for a year. We were bound to mistake our friendship for feelings of something more.”

He hadn’t. Deep down, he knew he’d fallen for her. Hard.

Caleb couldn’t think of one thing that he had wanted more in his life than to have a future with the girl in front of him. He’d beenable to see clearly what that could be for him. And she’d torn it away from him.

But he cared for her too much to keep her trapped in any way. Her father had done that to her. He’d tried to control her from the second she was born, and Caleb refused to be someone who did the same. If she wanted her freedom, he’d give it to her.

That was what she’d wanted from the beginning, after all.

“If you want me to sign that post-nup, we can have the lawyers draw one up. It’ll be easy enough.”

Confusion mingled with relief and something else he couldn’t read as she took a step toward him. “Really?”

He moved away from her, refusing to let her touch him, and he nodded. “Sure. Then, when you have your inheritance, I’ll make sure we have the divorce papers ready. Painless like we’d always planned.”

“But Caleb?—”

He couldn’t stand there and listen to her for another second. His soul had been ripped from his body, leaving his heart frayed and bleeding. Spinning away from her, he charged out of the stall and toward the entrance of the barn.

Money.

That’s what this whole thing had always been about. The money she wanted or needed. Things. The worst thing was that he couldn’t even blame her. He knew the feeling of hopelessness and worrying about the stability of an unknown future. His grandfather had lost a great deal. His parents had sacrificed so much. It didn’t matter that he had offered to take care of herwhen the money he had to his name was only a drop in the bucket compared to what she’d get.

Sammie wanted to be independent, and that meant having something to call her own.

She’d get her inheritance, and then they’d part ways.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

What had she done?

The second Caleb left the stall, the air whooshed right out of her chest. Sammie’s legs shook, and she had to lean against the wall to prevent herself from falling to the ground. She hadn’t wanted Caleb to break things off.

And yet she hadn’t tried hard enough to stop him.

What did that say about her?

That she was a coward?

That she couldn’t believe a guy as good as Caleb would want someone like her without the incentive of her money? Sammie felt sick to her stomach. Caleb had never shown any evidence that money mattered to that extent. There were little signs—that she could admit. The way he was so secretive about the money he owned was the biggest one. Then there was his interest in what she wanted to do with said inheritance. He’d been borderline pushy.

What choice did she have but to believe her father?

And yet she still hadn’t wanted to end anything. All she’d wanted was for Caleb to demonstrate he cared for her enough to keep her financially safe from everyone—including himself.

Alone and suddenly very cold, Sammie let out a whimper, and the first tear fell down her cheek. She had wanted to go after him, but his words had stopped her in her tracks.

Dang it.

He’d finally realized that what they had wasn’t real love. He hadn’t said he didn’t harbor some affection for her, but that was different than love.

Based on the way her heart was breaking, she’d been deep in the throes of the former. She’d loved him. She’d wanted to spend her life with him. She just couldn’t risk losing everything on the off chance her father was more right than she wanted him to be.

The rest of the day’s chores were completed in a fog. Sammie didn’t have anyone she could talk to here. She couldn’t exactly get into the nitty gritty with Caleb’s cousins. It had been a risk to talk to them in the first place. Hallie seemed to be on her side to a degree, but Sammie wasn’t sure she could trust giving out more information than she already had.

Caleb didn’t find her for lunch, and when dinner rolled around, she wasn’t certain she could show her face. For all her family knew, her relationship with Caleb was going strong. This would be the second dinner she missed with them, so perhaps that view was changing.

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