Deciding to keep a safe distance from the pair, Sage went into the gift shop that afforded a good view of the hotel’s lobby. She watched, almost suspended in shock, as her father and the woman stepped into the elevator when it opened.
That doesn’t mean a thing, her mind tried to tell her. He’s just being a gentleman and seeing the woman to her room. Didn’t Gabe Blackwell do that very same thing with you in Anchorage? And it was all perfectly innocent with you and him, so why can’t it be that way for your father and her?
Sage paused, wanting to believe what her mind was saying. Leaving the gift shop, she walked to the lobby and sat on the leather sofa where she could see her father when he left the hotel.
Picking up a magazine, Sage began flipping through it. An hour had passed before she finally admitted to herself that her father wasn’t coming back down any time soon.
With tears blinding her, Sage managed to make it back to her room with the realization that in the same day, the two men she had trusted most had let her down.
She had sat downstairs in the lobby on the sofa for three, close to four, solid hours, refusing to move. She had to be there when her father came down on the elevator; she had all intentions of confronting him. But when he did come down, and the woman was with him, Sage couldn’t do anything but sit there and stare, her body numb and glued to the spot, as she watched them leave the hotel together, smiling at each other and holding hands, not even noticing her presence.
And that was when the tears she had fought so hard to hold back had come flooding down. How could he do this to her mother? Was he willing to throw away thirty years for a pretty face and a young body?
Moving in slow motion, a grief-stricken Sage put on her pajamas. She then sat on the edge of the bed and checked the calls she had missed on her cell phone, not surprised to see that all of them but one had been from Erol. She automatically deleted Erol’s messages, not wanting to hear his voice, and retrieved her mother’s message. The call had been made nearly two hours ago, during the same time Sage had been sitting in the lobby downstairs.
“Sage, I didn’t know you had returned to town until Erol called earlier looking for you. He sounded worried. Is everything all right, sweetheart? Your father is working late again tonight, so I’ll be visiting Mrs. Myers at the hospital. I’ll have my mobile phone on if you need to reach me.”
Sage swallowed the lump in her throat, thinking that no, everything was not all right with her, and she doubted things would ever be again. Not wanting to watch anything on television, she removed the remote from the bed and placed it on the nightstand. Something about her felt different, detached, lost.
The first thought that came to her mind was that her mother—her trusting and loving mother—had a right to know that her husband was not always working late as he claimed. She deserved to know that on some of those nights—this one in particular—he’d been laid up in a hotel room with a woman.
Sage blinked back more tears. Whoever said that when it rained it poured knew exactly what they were talking about. And for the first time her heart was beating so heavy in her chest she thought she would die. Betrayal from people you loved was nothing short of a deep, crushing blow, and tonight she was feeling the full effect. Erol and her father had definitely opened her eyes to things she had been blinded to for so long. Rose was right. A man could not be trusted, and Sage had learned that hard lesson all in one day.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning when Sage stepped out of the elevator into the ornate lobby of the hotel, she felt that she had a somewhat better grip on things. She paused briefly, inhaling deeply, determined to face whatever problems she had head-on and deal with them as best she could.
There was nothing more she had to say to Erol, and since there was no way she could live with him any longer, she planned to move out. The big question was, where would she go? Under normal circumstances, to move back in with her parents for a while would be the most logical choice. But after what she had seen last night involving her father, being logical didn’t play into anything anymore. The way she presently felt, the less time she spent around him, the better. She was too confused and hurt to think otherwise.
One thing was for certain, though: she intended to confront him about last night. There was no way she could not. She wanted him to tell her what he planned to do about her mother. She felt her mother had a right to know her husband was being unfaithful, and a sense of mother-daughter loyalty dictated that she be the one to tell her if her father did not. What woman wouldn’t want to know that she was being made a fool of?
The first thing Sage wanted to do was to go to the apartment and pack her things, grateful that Mr. Poole had given her the day off. She had made a decision to remain at the hotel an additional night or two until she decided where she would go. She was tempted to take Rose up on her offer to stay with her until she got straight, although doing so would hurt her parents if she moved any other place than home. In her frame of mind, she really didn’t care how her father felt about it. Her main concern was her mother’s feelings.
A half hour later Sage frowned when she pulled into her apartment complex and noticed Erol’s car, which meant that he had not left for work yet. Inhaling deeply, she brought her car to a stop. There was nothing she had to say to him. She wouldn’t talk to him. She wouldn’t even acknowledge his presence.
She had barely placed her key in the door when it was snatched open.
“Sage! Where the hell have you been! I’ve been worried sick!”
Sage’s forehead wrinkled for a second, immediately recalling that she had broken up with Erol yesterday, so what was his problem? After what he’d done, she didn’t owe him an explanation about anything, especially her whereabouts.
She met his gaze with a glare of her own, ignoring the fact that he looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. As far as she was concerned, he had made his bed, so he could very well lie in it, even sleepless.
“I came to pick up some of my things,” she said frostily, moving around him to enter the apartment. She passed through the living room and headed straight to their bedroom. He followed close behind, right on her heels.
“Sage, we need to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Erol,” she threw over her shoulder and kept walking.
“Don’t you think you’re taking this to the extreme? I borrowed money from my folks to pay our bills for this month. And they said I didn’t have to pay them back until we were back on our feet.”
Sage turned so quickly she almost collided with him. “You wouldn’t have to pay them at all if you hadn’t done what you did,” she said sharply. “You just don’t get it, do you? It’s trust you can’t replace, Erol. I’d like to see you borrow that from your parents.”
His lips tightened in a grim, straight line, and he folded his arms over his chest. “And you’re willing to throw five years away just because I screwed up this one time?”
“Yes. All it takes is one big screwup. In this situation, it’s not what you did, but it’s how you did it. You knew how I would feel about it and did it anyway, without any consideration for my feelings. That tells me that you didn’t give a damn about how I felt. You thought only about what you wanted, your own selfish greed.”
His expression was regretful. “Okay, I was wrong, and I admit it. I should have told you when I had the chance.”
“Yes, you should have.” She then turned away and continued walking. When she got to the bedroom, she closed the door behind her.
* * *
She would be fine, Sage kept telling herself as she continued to pack, using the extra luggage she had. She was thankful that Erol hadn’t come into the room and had left her alone. Like she had told him, there was nothing to discuss.
She had talked to Rose before she had begun packing. Rose had again assured her that she could stay with her for a while and that she would leave work and meet Sage at her apartment at lunch to help move her stuff
in.
When Sage left the bedroom, pulling her luggage behind her, out of the corner of her eye she saw Erol sitting on the sofa in the living room as she passed through. She couldn’t believe that he was glaring at her, actually pissed off that she had broken off their engagement and was moving out. When she reached the door to open it, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “I’ll be back sometime later today with some boxes to get the rest of my things.”
With nothing else to say, she left.
Sage had barely made it up the walkway to her parents’ home when her mother opened the door with a worried look on her face.
“What’s going on, Sage? Why didn’t you sleep at your apartment last night?”
Sage lifted an arched brow. “And how did you know that I didn’t?”
“Because Erol called again this morning looking for you. Your father and I have been worried sick. He was so worried he couldn’t go into the office this morning.”
Yeah, I bet that’s the lie he told you as to why he couldn’t go in, Sage thought, giving her mom a hug, while fuming on the inside at the thought of her father’s duplicity. “I’m fine, Mom. Where’s Dad?”
“He’s upstairs taking a shower. He worked later than usual last night, and when I told him that you and Erol had had some sort of a tiff and you were missing, of course he became concerned.”
“I wasn’t missing, Mom. I merely spent the night at a hotel,” she replied, following her mother into the house and closing the door behind them.
Her mother took her hand and met her gaze. “Are things that bad between you and Erol, Sage?”
Sage thought she may as well get it out. “Yes, Mom, in fact, I broke our engagement.”
She wasn’t surprised by her mother’s sharp intake of breath. “What on earth did he do?”
Sage threw her purse down on the couch. “He took money out of my bank account without discussing it with me first.”
Delores Dunbar shook her head, smiling warmly. “Sweetheart, your father takes money out of our account all the time. Just last week he took out a hundred dollars to buy something he saw advertised on television. A woman learns to grin and bear that sort of thing, and make sure extra money—namely his—is consistently put into the account.”
Sage dropped down on the sofa. “We’re not talking about a hundred dollars, Mom. We’re talking about over fifty-two thousand dollars.”
“Fifty-two thousand dollars!”
Sage glanced at the shocked look on her mother’s face. “Yes, and that includes the money Gramma left for me,” she said, fighting back tears. Each time she thought about it, she got upset.
Delores immediately joined her daughter on the sofa and hugged her. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry about that. What could Erol have been thinking?”
“Evidently not about me,” Sage said angrily.
Her mother shook her head sadly. “Why would he need fifty-two thousand dollars?”
Sage wiped her eyes. “For what he thought was a sure-fire investment which turned out to be a hoax. He lost every penny he invested, of which over ninety percent belonged to me. And what hurts so bad is the fact he didn’t discuss it with me beforehand. He said he knew I would be against it and decided to go ahead and do it anyway.”
Delores nodded. “I’m sure he thought he would get back more in return for his investment.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the point. The point is that I can’t trust him anymore. He didn’t consider my feelings. He knew how much I loved my grandmother and that the money in my savings account was her gift to me. How could he do such a thing?”
“Oh, honey. Sometimes men can be insensitive, but that doesn’t make them totally awful people.”
Sage leaned back and lifted a surprised brow. “And you think I should not have broken up with him?”
“I think the two of you should make an attempt to work things out, Sage. You both have too much time invested in your relationship not to.”
Sage frowned. “There’s nothing to work out, Mom. I trusted him, and he betrayed my trust. It’s as simple as that.”
Delores shook her head sadly. “Nothing about a relationship is simple, Sage. You have to be willing to work at it, iron out the kinks and flaws, and accept the fact that no one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes.”
Sage wondered if her mother would be singing that same song if she knew her husband had spent over three hours in a hotel room with some woman last night while she thought he was working late. “I never expected Erol to be perfect, Mom, but I did expect him to be trustworthy. Trust is important to me.”
“And it should be. All I’m saying is that when two people love each other, and I mean really love each other, they need to try and work things out before calling it quits, which makes me wonder.”
Sage arched a dark brow. “About what?”
“Just how much you do love, Erol. Look how long it took you to agree to marry him. Even your father mentioned that you seemed to be dragging your feet in planning your wedding.”
Sage’s gaze locked with her mother’s, not believing what she was hearing. “How could you wonder such a thing? Erol and I have been together a long time. I wouldn’t have stayed with him if I didn’t love him. And as far as me taking a long time to agree to marry him, I didn’t see the need to rush into a marriage like he did.”
“And you didn’t think a long-term commitment, a marriage vow, was important?”
Sage sighed deeply. How could she tell her mother that she always had thought so … until last night? A marriage vow hadn’t kept her father from sleeping with another woman. “Yes, Mom, I think it’s important. I just thought what Erol and I had didn’t necessarily need a piece of paper to be solid.”
“Long marriages run in our family, Sage.”
“Yes, I know that. All I’m saying is that I agreed to marry Erol when I felt I was ready.”
Her mother didn’t say anything for the longest time, and then she asked, “And now, Sage?”
“And now the only thing I’m ready to do is to get on with my life—alone—without him.” Sage heard movement behind her and knew her father was coming down the stairs.
“I’m sure your father has a lot to say to you, young lady.”
Sage nodded and smiled tenderly at her mother, and tried to hide the hurt, anger and disappointment in her voice when she said, “Yes, I’m sure he does.”
And I have a lot to say to him as well, she thought. She felt her throat close tight and could feel the stinging of tears in her eyes as she braced herself to come face-to-face with him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At a time when she needed her parents more than anything, Sage didn’t want to feel such animosity toward her father. But when she stood and met his gaze, she felt nothing but profound anger and disappointment.
Evidently, something in the way she was looking at him stopped him short when he descended the last stair. “Sage? Are you all right, sweetheart?” he asked slowly as his gaze raked over her.
“Yes, I’m fine.” She knew her tone was just this side of curt, but that couldn’t be helped. She’d already dealt with Erol, and now she had to deal with her father.
“Your mother and I have been worried,” he said, coming into the room to stand in front of her and next to her mother.
Sage wanted so much to fling herself into his arms like she’d always done when she’d been hurt and upset about something, or just plain needed a hug. But not this time.
“Do you want to tell me and your mother what’s going on with you and Erol?”
Sage sighed deeply. She didn’t want to tell him anything, and at the moment she felt that given her present state of mind, being here wasn’t helping at all.
“Sage?”
She sighed again, more irritably this time. “I’ve already told Mom, but just so you’ll know, I discovered Erol is not as trustworthy as I thought,” she said, letting her anger get the better of her. “I came back to town to discover he had cleaned out both my checkin
g and my saving accounts of over fifty thousand dollars, and that amount included the money Gramma Dunbar left for me.”
Charles Dunbar blinked as total disbelief covered his face. “Are you sure?”
Yes, I’m as sure of what he did as much as I’m sure of what you did, she wanted to scream, but instead she said, “Yes. I went to the bank yesterday and saw the documents he signed to get the money out. He even confessed to doing it.”
“But for what reason?”
She was silent for a minute; then she answered, “For an investment scheme that went bad which means we lost every penny.”
Her father shook his head sadly. “I admit Erol acted irresponsibly, but then, that’s how it is with investments. You can make money and you can lose money.”
Sage’s heart pounded painfully in her chest. “Yes, but it wasn’t his money to lose. He had no right investing my money into anything without talking to me about it first.”
“Sage.” She heard her father let out a deep sigh. “His name was on your bank account, wasn’t it?”
Sage frowned, and her lips pursed. “Yes.”
“Then, that means that technically, it was his money as well.”
Sage felt stunned at the attitude her father was taking. “But it wasn’t his to use without discussing things with me first, no matter what. If he does something like this now, I’d hate to think what he’d do once we’re married. There is such a thing as trust in a relationship, Dad. One that’s not only implied but also practiced. After being married over thirty years, I’d think you would know that.”
“Sage!” her mother admonished. “No matter what’s going on between you and Erol, you have no reason to speak to your father that way.”
Sage closed her eyes, breathing deeply and thinking that she had plenty of reason. When she reopened her eyes, she met her father’s gaze. He had tilted his head to one side and was studying her thoughtfully. She wondered briefly if her comment had him thinking as to why she would say such a thing to him.
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