Page 47 of Her Christmas Wish

And remembered her conversation with Iris on the beach four days before.

He’d said a few times that he didn’t get the whole family thing. That he wasn’t sure he’d be a good father. Things like that. Never with any explanation, you know? Even when I asked why he’d say those things. He’d just shrug.

And she let him. She hadn’t pushed.

Worse, she couldn’t remember needing to know more.

She’d simply accepted that he was different from her and that that was okay. She hadn’t judged. Or worried. Hadn’t tried to make him more like her.

She’d accepted the man he was. Loved him for who he was.

There was no doubt in her mind about those things.

And yet...what he’d just told her...

It was like, in the space of five minutes, the man she’d known since she was eighteen was no more. He’d morphed into...more.

So much more.

Standing abruptly, filling with anger, she strode to the window. Was pretty sure she could pick out his SUV leaving the parking garage so far down below.

Didn’t matter that there were hundreds of SUVs that looked identical to his on California roads.

How could he say he loved her and wanted to marry her, but hadn’t even shared himself with her?

How humiliating to have blabbered every thought, every emotion, every want and fear all over him, only to find that he’d withheld even basic facts from her? And not just innocuous stuff, either. What he’d just told her...that was life-shaping information right there.

Why hadn’t he told her, dammit?

Leaving the window, she went to her desk, reminding herself of the paying clients who were waiting to hear from her yet that day.

She had the work done. But the calls were equally important.

Communication was the key to trust.

And...he hadn’t trusted her.

He hadn’t trusted her?

Why hadn’t he told her?

She could ask herself a thousand times and she wasn’t going to get the answer. She didn’t have it. Gray did.

So why hadn’t she pushed? Tried harder?

Why had she let him just shrug her off?

Deflated, Sage flopped down into her chair. Slouched back, staring at...nothing.

She should have tried harder.

Like Iris had with her Sunday on the beach. People needed coaxing sometimes.

And sometimes they needed to know that the place was safe for revelations. Iris had made her feel safe. Letting Sage know that she saw her friend in need of support and was willing to offer only that.

Had she somehow failed to give Gray that same sense of support?

She sat up straight.