Page 53 of A Heart to Find
It had to.
They were not a match. Never were, never would be. She couldn’t let her empathy override her sense. Not now. It would be better if she walked away and bided her time until the end of this horrific experiment so she could get her new match and another try at happiness.
She went through the motions. She managed to walk away. She kept her tears at bay and walked with her back straight. She smiled at each person she passed by.
But the pain in her chest threatened to knock her over.
How could she quit him? Knowing the wonderful, exciting man he had grown to be? Having experienced the joy of being playful with him. The honor of hearing him trust her with his feelings about his mother. The joy of having someone really get her when she confided in him about her tragic family life.
Remembering the feeling of being held in his arms. Knowing she’d never banish the clean scent of his neck from her sensory memory. Realizing that all the things she had secretly been wishing could bloom and develop would die on the garden floor…
Grateful for a mostly empty lobby when she finally reached the lodge, she rushed to her room where she could allow all the pent-up emotions to stream free.
Tomorrow would be a new day. She’d go along with her original plan of following the matchmaking guidelines. She’d be nicer to Jared, but as a friendly person, not a potential match.
And she wouldn’t let her guard down again.
Chapter 13
Jared hadn’t managed to get more than a couple of hours of sleep, which would lead to another day of crabbiness if he wasn’t careful. Elizabeth and Hailey always jibed him about waking up on the wrong side of the bed if he didn’t get a solid eight hours, and since he had been through the gamut of emotions over the last week—not to mention the night lost looking for the necklace—he was in a serious sleep deficit.
He had been so stupid. Losing it on her like that probably cost any chance they had at making a go of this thing. So after he followed her back to the lodge to make sure she returned safely—from a safe distance so she wouldn’t know he followed—he wandered around the island until his blood pressure returned to normal. His moods had been all over the place. Angry, frustrated, remorseful. He searched for the necklace thinking if he could find that maybe she’d warm to him again. He kicked rocks down the street wishing he had exerted some control over his anger. He gazed at places they had been over the course of the past week, wishing he could go back to the moments of growing passion and trust.
Yet when he awoke this morning, he was back to being irritated.
The whole thing was his fault.
He should have told her about Hailey from the very first getting-to-know-you moment. He’d had plenty of opportunities. He had been a coward, and now this tension between them would continue to grow.
She had lost her niece and nephew. He could feel her pain when she talked about that loss. He knew she lived it and suffered through the pain every day. But he didn’t understand why that would make her afraid of having a stepchild. That’s part of why he wanted to skip the sharing circle or whatever the heck they called that part of the event. He wanted to get her alone to talk. About her hesitations, about Hailey. And sure, maybe he also wanted to be alone with her to sneak in some physical affection. He had been dying to kiss her since she first walked up to him at the welcoming reception. That urge had only grown stronger by the moment.
Growing their relationship was by far the more important thing to him. He failed to understand how sharing all that ooey gooey gushy emotional stuff with strangers would help their relationship go anywhere.
He avoided contacting her all day, not ready to deal with a situation he had lost control over. He’d let her simmer, he’d allow himself to stew, and maybe he could see a clear path to reconciliation once the fog cleared.
An alert text from the resort reminded him that there was a mandatory island-wide scavenger hunt for couples this afternoon, followed by a cocktail party.
He considered skipping.
But that would violate the contract he had signed, and he had committed to following all the rules. He wasn’t one to break an oath, and Elizabeth had known that when she made him swear to follow every step no matter how ridiculous he thought they were.
Besides, he wouldn’t leave Keira there alone, no matter how irritated he was.
Keira walked into the conference room with an air of confidence she was far from feeling, but was eager to project. He had sent her a four-word text.
See you at four.
No heart eyes emoticon. No exclamation point. Just four words with a plain old period.
Though she wanted to throw her phone into the fireplace, she didn’t. Though she wanted to tell him she wouldn’t be there, she resisted the urge. And though she would rather hide away in her big, comfy bed and exchange angsty texts with her best friend back home, she had every intention of showing him what he was missing out on.
Hair done. Makeup done—she even glittered her eyelids with the special eye shadow Robyn had slipped into her bag. Best casual outfit with the good jeans that showcased her curves the most effectively. And, for kicks, she slipped into high-heeled ankle boots for the first time since hurting her ankle.
Had that only been days ago? Seemed like months.
And though she’d garner his attention with the extra effort she paid to her appearance, she would ignore him the same way she ignored behavior she wanted to discourage in her classroom.
She caught his eye as soon as she walked into the room—seven minutes late because she refused to show up exactly when he told her to. She didn’t want to push it past the seven-minute mark and offend the staff who worked so hard to put the event together, but Jared probably remembered that she never liked to be late for anything, so hopefully he’d wonder why.
