Free Kismet: A Serendipity Novella by Carly Phillips Page B

know. Maybe that is it. But could you blame me?” he
asked, his voice rising. “Could you really blame me for having a
tough time with it?” He sucked in a breath, then muttered a low
curse. “Shit. I didn’t mean it that way.”
    He sure as hell had, Lissa thought. She
closed her eyes and only when she was sure she could speak calmly
did she look him dead in the eye. “Not only did you mean it, but I
have an answer to your question. Yeah, I sure as hell
can
blame you. Not before yesterday, but after. After you looked me in
the eye and told me we weren’t over. Now this?” She shook her head,
devastated beyond words. “Just go,” she said, wanting to him to
leave so she could be alone when she cried.
    She turned her head and waited. She felt him
standing there staring at her and she held her breath, wondering if
he’d crawl onto the bed, pull her into his arms, and say he’d made
a mistake.
    Instead, she heard him dressing and getting
himself together. After an interminably long time, the hotel door
shut behind him, leaving Lissa alone.
    She turned and rolled into the pillow that
smelled like him and sobbed for what felt like hours before
dragging herself out of bed and into the shower.
    She had a daughter she adored and a life to
get back to. There was no way she could go home with swollen eyes
so her perceptive little girl would ask her why mommy had been
crying.
    *
    Trevor waited until he was alone in the
elevator and slammed his hand into the metal wall, grateful for the
pain throbbing in his knuckles. Better to focus on that than the
pain searing his heart.
    He hadn’t walked out on Lissa easily or
lightly, but he’d done it based on the main thing Alex had said
that made sense.
Before you ask her for anything, make sure you
can handle her life and everything that comes with it
.
    Was Trevor sure he could handle dealing with
Brad Banks as Lissa’s ex-husband, as her daughter’s father? Could
he be a stepfather to a little girl who probably adored a man
Trevor hated?
    He didn’t know, but he’d better figure it
out soon—before he lost Lissa for good.

Chapter Six
    It was amazing what one could accomplish
with a broken heart, Lissa thought, not for the first time since
her return from New York. When she’d finally pulled herself
together and showered, she’d found a note slipped under her door in
Trevor’s handwriting. “I’ll always love you.”
    At the time, she’d thought it was a sweet
but pointless gesture and she’d tucked the paper into her bag, one
last memory of the weekend. Now, two weeks had gone by. Life had
gone on. Lissa had baked cookies for Livvy’s bake sale at school,
she’d helped her daughter with her homework, and she’d argued with
Brad about canceling his next weekend with Livvy. He’d promised he
would take his fiancée to Cancun and wanted Lissa to break the news
to their daughter. When Brad refused to change his plans, she
informed her ex-husband he could damn well disappoint his daughter
himself. Lissa wasn’t doing his dirty work for him.
    In the meantime, the
News Journal
had been so happy with her article on Trevor, they’d made a
permanent job offer. Thanks to the beauty of computers and the
Internet, she could work from anywhere, and she’d eagerly accepted.
The magazine had gone to print on Trevor and was on newsstands now.
She’d made sure to overnight a copy to Trevor, but she hadn’t
signed a note of her own.
    She’d interviewed Ethan Barron and
discovered just how hard his life had been, how much he’d had to
overcome, and how he’d done it all on his own. He’d returned to his
hometown to face the wrath of the brothers he’d left behind and fix
his life. Along the way he’d discovered a teenage half-sister he
didn’t know he had, and both he and Faith were raising her
together. No, it wasn’t easy, but being together with the woman he
loved made it simpler.
    That’s when Lissa lost her “star-crossed
lovers” point of view and got angry at