Page 33 of Trophy

She wasn’t going to change her mind.

Rob waved at Keith and then headed back into the house to find Allison.

Something still didn’t feel quite right with her. She must still be upset about last night, so he needed to fix it.

He’d been stupid to leave her the way he had. He’d been weak and cowardly—trying to escape from a hard conversation. Dee might have needed him, but Allison had needed him more.

He’d hoped, when she didn’t confront him after he came back to bed, that it wouldn’t be a big deal. But it was. He knew it was.

He didn’t see her in the living room or kitchen. “Allison?”

She didn’t answer, so he wandered down the hall until he found her in his bedroom. She was collecting an armful of her clothes that had been left in his room over the past few weeks.

“What are you doing?” he asked, trying to read her expression and failing.

“Getting my stuff.”

“Why?” His unsettled feeling had shifted into fear, but he didn’t know why.

She didn’t answer. She just straightened up and gave him a ghost of a smile. “So you made a bet about me, did you?”

Damn it. She must have overheard Keith out on the porch. What the hell had Keith been thinking, saying something like that when Allison was around? “It’s not what you think.”

“I know. It was just a silly bet you made before you knew me.”

He released a rough sigh. “Yes. That’s it exactly. It was stupid and insensitive, but it didn’t mean anything. I’d never use you like a bet. You know that.”

“I do know that.” She wasn’t meeting his eyes, and she leaned down to pick up a shirt of hers that had slipped out of her hands.

“So why are you getting all your stuff?”

She straightened up and met his eyes. “I’m leaving.”

The words were like a blow to the gut. “What? What ? Why?”

“This isn’t going to work.”

It took him almost a full minute to realize she was serious, to process exactly what she was saying. Last night had been a failure on his part, but otherwise things had been going really well between them. Rob knew he wasn’t imagining it or sugarcoating it with wishful thinking.

They were good together. He wasn’t choosing the wrong kind of woman the way he had before. He was happier with her than he’d ever been with any other woman. He’d genuinely believed she felt the same way about him.

But she was actually walking out on him. She must have almost reached his front door.

Recovering his ability to move, he strode down the hall after her. “Now, wait just a minute. You can’t just tell me it isn’t working and walk away!”

She’d taken off his socks and put on her flip-flops. She was reaching for the storm door latch. “I have to, Rob. I’m really sorry.”

He caught his breath and willed himself to be reasonable when what he really wanted to do was grab her, throw her over his shoulder, and carry her someplace where she would never leave him.

“If you need some time or whatever, then I get that. I know I messed up last night, and the bet was really an asshole thing to do. If you need time, I get that.”

“I don’t need time,” she told him, her face pale and her eyes almost empty of expression. “This isn’t going to work.”

He stared at her blindly as she walked out his front door, across his porch, down the front steps, and along the driveway.

She meant it. She was really leaving him. Without even giving him a real explanation.

Once this thought had sunk in, he was spurred into action. He ran after her, catching up to her at her front door.

“Rob,” she said, her voice breaking as he grabbed her arm. She shook his grip off as she walked into her house. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” he rasped, his whole body throbbing with urgency. “You’re dumping me—without even telling me why. Without even telling me why !”

She was really upset. He could see that now, even beneath the frozen composure she was trying to maintain. “Of course I’ll tell you why.”

“Then tell me!” He was being too loud. Too forceful. He was going to scare her if he didn’t rein it in.

She made a strange sound, like she was choking on something.

But then she straightened her shoulders and said, “I thought we could just be together, enjoy each other for a while. Like we’d said at the beginning.

I thought it would be safe if it was casual, because I never really intended to stay here in Fielding for very long.

But then things started to get serious.”

“I know that.” He still sounded almost mean, but at least he wasn’t shouting at her now. “That’s what happens in relationships when two people are into each other.”

“I know.” She must have heard her voice wobbling, because she took a deep breath before she continued more evenly, “But things weren’t right from the beginning. I want a real relationship. An equal relationship.”

“That’s what we have. Of course it’s what we have.”

“No, it’s not. It doesn’t feel equal to me. I’m not blaming you. It’s me doing it to myself—turning myself into another trophy wife.”

“That’s ridiculous! You’re not going to be another trophy wife. I’m not thinking about a wife right now. I just want to be with you.”

“You say that, but I know that’s not true. You have a ring in your sock drawer, and you want to give it to someone.”

The words slammed into him like another blow, and he turned away instinctively.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. “Shit, shit, shit.” She’d seen the ring after all.

It was like the entire world was conspiring against him today.

“Allison, my mom just gave me that old thing. I wasn’t planning to propose.

What kind of idiot do you think I am that you believe I’d ask you to marry me so soon? ”

She covered her face with her hands for just a moment. “I didn’t think you were going to. It’s not that.”

He let out a muffled roar, about to lose it completely. “If it’s not the bet and it’s not the ring, then what the fuck is it?”

“It’s us!” she burst out, no longer able to control her emotions. Tears were streaming down her face now. “We’re not right. We never were.”

“We are right.” He realized he was going about this all wrong, so he tempered his voice and leaned in closer to her, putting a hand on the wall beside her.

“Allison, I know you’re scared, but we are right.

We’re so good together. If we need to go slower, then I completely understand, but don’t just run away because you’re scared. ”

She stared at him with huge, sad eyes and didn’t say anything.

“Allison,” he murmured huskily, hope flaring up that he could take care of this after all. “You know we’re good together. Just tell me what I need to do to make you feel better about us.”

He thought for a moment he was getting though, that she was softening, but then suddenly she pushed him away. “You can’t fix this, Rob. You can’t fix everything. That’s not what a relationship is about.”

He blinked, growing still as he registered what she was saying. “So this is about last night?” he breathed.

“No! Yes. I don’t even know. It’s about everything!

” She was clearly about to lose it completely.

“I just know where this thing between us is going. I know what’s going to happen.

You’re going to keep not trusting me with who you really are, pretending you’re always strong and in control.

And I’m going to let you because I want to be with someone like that, because I’m so used to being dependent and going along with what a strong man wants. ”

He suddenly knew exactly what she was saying, and he knew why she was saying it. She’d tried to tell him before. She’d tried to tell him last night. And she wasn’t the only one who had tried to tell him that he could never let himself feel vulnerable or risk humiliation with a woman again.

He had to clear his throat over the pressure of guilt and knowledge in his throat. “I know we both still have issues to work through, but that doesn’t mean we have to break up.”

“Yes, we do. Because we might say we’ll work on them, but we won’t. And we’ll just go along the way we’ve been going. It’s exactly what happened to me before with Arthur. And it will just keep happening to us, until I’m just another trophy on another man’s shelf. And I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”

Rob couldn’t even move. “I don’t think…” His voice didn’t sound anything like his own. “I don’t think of you like a trophy. I don’t.”

“It’s not something you’re doing, Rob. It’s what I’m doing—trying to be the person you want me to be. And it’s just wrong.”

He couldn’t even speak anymore. The world was spinning around him far too fast, making him dizzy, making him sick. Because something was happening here that he couldn’t stop, couldn’t fix, couldn’t make better.

“I’m so sorry, Rob,” Allison concluded in a hoarse whisper. “But I want out.”

“You… want out.”

“Yes.” She was wiping away the tears as they fell, but she didn’t lower her eyes.

She meant it. She’d seen him for who he really was, and she didn’t want him anymore.

He’d been humiliated enough in his life. He wasn’t going to do it to himself by begging her to reconsider, by spilling out how much he loved her, how he was going to be miserable without her, how he’d change anything about himself if it meant she’d be happy and stay.

If she didn’t want him, then he would accept it. He’d done just fine before she’d moved in across the street and disrupted his entire existence.

“Okay, then,” he mumbled, taking a few ragged breaths. “Then I’ll go.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, but he could barely hear her.

He was walking out, walking away, leaving her behind.

Eventually he made it all the way across the street.

The hot, humid day and his messy house seemed no different than they had an hour ago—except that the whole world had changed.