~ ~ ~
“I think I realized then that I loved you, although the word love probably didn’t occur to me,” Gray told Julianna. She was still facing away from him, gazing into the Hawaiian night, and she held herself stiffly, afraid she might inadvertently touch him.
“Why are you telling me this now? Do you think it changes anything that happened?” Julianna tried to draw farther away, but there was no place to go.
“We’ve got to be completely honest.”
“You didn’t love me! Maybe you’ve tried to convince yourself that what you felt back then was love, but it wasn’t. Maybe you felt pity, maybe you felt responsible for getting me pregnant, but that was it.”
“I loved you, and you loved me.”
She swallowed twice, trying to deny the truth of the last, but she couldn’t. She had loved him. And all his betrayals had been that much worse because she had. “I loved you, but I was a fool.”
“When did you stop loving me? Was it before I graduated? Because by the time I came home for good and we went to the beach house, I was sure you hated me.”
“I didn’t hate you then,” she said before she could stop herself.
“Tell me, then,” he insisted softly. “Tell me how it was for you. I have to understand.”