CHAPTER 38

Derrick stared broodingly out his office window and replayed the morning’s events over and over. Had he overreacted? Part of him said yeah. The other part, the practical, unemotional part, said no, that he’d been right to be angry. And certainly he had no right to lash out at her like that, to hurt her so badly.

But damn it, enough was enough. What should have been the best night of his entire life, the culmination of an impossible dream, had ended in his worst nightmare. Maybe it had always been an impossibility. Perhaps Sandra wasn’t ready—would never be ready—to let go.

So where did that leave him? A week ago he would have vowed that he would be satisfied with any part of her. That he would wait, be patient for her to come around and hope that eventually she would be in a place where she could give him back in full measure what he was willing to give her.

But when she’d told him she loved him, and then wept for her husband the morning after, he’d been seized by a fatalistic sensati