Trust in Me (54 page)
Authors: Kathryn Shay
Tags: #harassment in work place, #keeping childhood friends, #race car romance, #about families, #Contemporary, #contemporary romance novel, #Fiction, #Romance, #troubled teenagers, #General, #stock car racing
“Shh, you’ll be all right,” he whispered into her hair. “You just gotta take care of yourself.”
“It’s not that.”
“What, then?”
She dug in closer. She always burrowed into him like this when she was sad or upset. “I feel so bad,” she managed between hiccups. “That you had to go through that.” Easing away, she looked up at him, her eyes awash with painful emotion. “But I didn’t know what to do. We decided not to tell anybody this wasn’t your baby. So I knew I shouldn’t say anything to the doctor. Then she wanted to talk to you, and you were here and I--” The sobs came again, racking her body.
Nick drew in a deep breath. “It’s okay, babe.”
She shook her head. “It’s bad enough what I did, but to make you pretend--”
“Shh, it’s all right.”
Again, she shook her head against his chest.
Something inside of him pushed to the surface, some protective instinct he thought had died when Callie informed him she carried another man’s child. “Yes, Cal, it is. We’re pretending to be happily married, that nothing’s wrong, for
me
. If I hadn’t been charged for sexual misconduct, we wouldn’t need this charade.”
“The charge isn’t your fault. It’s Tiffany’s.”
His anger and resentment dissolved like thin white smoke. All that seemed important was to comfort the trembling woman in his arms. “Do you have any idea how much your belief in my innocence means to me?”
“Does it?”
“Yes.” He gestured out the snow covered window to the office. “This is the least I can do.”
“Aren’t you upset?”
He’d be damned if he let her know the slicing pain he felt in that room, how long-buried needs and desires had ambushed him when he’d walked through the door. “I’m fine.” He hugged her close. “Let’s head home before the weather gets worse.”
She lifted her chin and stared at him. She wanted him to kiss her, he could tell.
He wanted to kiss her.
But it would be a mistake. Despite the emotional turmoil he was experiencing, he wasn’t that noble. So he brushed his lips in her hair, let her go, and started the car.
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