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His eyes shot to the back door, afraid someone would hear. “Keep your voice down.”
“You didn’t tell your fiancée?”
Duncan scowled at her.
“How could you, Duncan? Really, shame on you.”
He felt nauseated. His sister’s opinion of him meant everything.
“I never thought you’d be that guy—hooking up and sneaking out before the sun comes up.”
Nausea turned to shock. “Is that what she said?” He shook his head adamantly. “I had to catch my plane.”
“No, she didn’t say you snuck out. I put the pieces together.”
“That’s not what happened at all. I stayed with her as long as I could. I didn’t want to leave her.” He couldn’t believe he’d said those words, but he realized he meant them. He hadn’t wanted to leave her. Despite the guilt he had felt, a part of him had wanted to skip out on the Denver job altogether and stay with her, but he’d known that would be immature and irresponsible. He never wanted to be that guy again, so he’d left and caught his flight as a grown man should.
“Why didn’t you call her from Denver then? If you really care about her, why blow her off?”
His shoulders drooped. “Once I walked out of the apartment, I felt so guilty. I wasn’t going to do that again until I got married, but I was always so attracted to her.” He glanced toward the door again and kept his voice low. “She’s such a cute, feisty little thing, and the second I kissed her, I knew I was lost. I was so strong for so long, but I lost the battle. And I was ashamed. I felt like I took advantage of her. She wasn’t mine to have, but I had her anyway. And I didn’t know how to tell her that without hurting her. What girl wants to hear afterward that the guy feels anything but happy and content and … and in love, and I couldn’t tell her those things.”
“And walking away without any explanation was the answer?”
Duncan didn’t know what the answer was. He hadn’t then, and he didn’t now. But he knew he’d handled it all wrong. He ran his hands over his face and pushed his hair back from his forehead. “I don’t know.”
“I’ve spent ten years second-guessing my decision to break up with Micah, wondering how different life would be now if I’d told him the truth from the start. Don’t make the same mistake I made. Tell her the truth, Duncan. She deserves to hear it.”
Duncan’s heart broke for Shannon. She’d ended her relationship with Micah and kept the truth of her infertility and her Polycystic Ovary Syndrome from him for years. He knew it was her biggest regret and that she didn’t want him to have any regrets in his own life.
“I can’t look into those big brown eyes of hers and tell her that. I can’t be near her and not want her still.”
Shannon’s mouth fell open at his admission. “Duncan, you can’t marry Dréa if this is the way you feel.”
“We can’t base a relationship on physical attraction. And that’s what it would be. I like Jamie. I always have. But when it comes right down to it, we don’t know that much about each other. It’s always been a pretty surface relationship. We goof around and flirt. We don’t have deep conversations. I don’t know anything about her family. I don’t know how she became a photographer. Heck, I don’t even know her middle name, and I knew all those kinds of things about Dréa after the first date.”
“So get to know her.”
Honestly, he wished he had known more about Jamie before they slept together. He felt like the stereotypical guy with one thing on his mind. Not that knowing about her parents or what her favorite color was would have made it right.
Shannon stared at him.
“My desire for her isn’t a good enough foundation for a relationship. We may be sexually compatible—”
Shannon’s hand flew up to stop him. “Too much information.”
“But we have nothing else in common,” he continued. “We don’t share the same beliefs. It would never work.” He knew Jamie didn’t go to church and wasn’t a Christian. “It was a mistake.”
The look on his sister’s face said it all. She was disappointed in him, and that broke his heart.
“Please, go talk to her,” she said. “She deserves that much.”
Duncan groaned, knowing Shannon was right.
A knock on the door interrupted them. He went to answer it and was surprised to see Micah, Shannon’s ex, holding a bouquet of wildflowers.
“Hey, Micah. Long time no see.”
Micah nodded. “It has been a long time. I hear you’ve been on a job in Denver.”