Opposites Attract

Ty shifted. Besides, he reasoned, if Asher had had a child, where was it? Struggling to overcome the jealousy at imagining Asher bearing another man’s child, Ty went over his conversation with Jim Wolfe again.
    Asher wiped her child out of existence. . . .
    His fingers tightened on the arms of the chair as he stared at her sleeping form. Abortion? Without warning, a storm of emotion took over that he had to systematically fight back until his pulse leveled. All attempts to think of the word with an open mind were futile. He couldn’t rationalize it, not when it was Asher, not when the child was part of her. Could the woman he thought he knew have made that kind of choice? For what purpose? Was it possible that the social life she had sought had been more important than . . .
    As bitterness filled him, Ty shook his head. He wouldn’t believe it of her. Controlled, yes. There were times Asher could be infuriatingly controlled. But never calculating. Jim had been talking in riddles, he decided. There’d never been a child. There couldn’t have been.
    He watched Asher stir. With a soft murmur she shifted toward the emptiness beside her where Ty should have been. He sensed the moment she woke.
    The moonlight gleamed on her arm as she lifted it, brushing her fingers at the hair that curled around her face. She placed her hand on his pillow, as if testing it for warmth.
    “Ty?”
    Not trusting himself, he said nothing. If only she would go back to sleep until he had resolved his feelings. He could still taste the bitterness at the back of his throat.
    But she wouldn’t sleep. Although groggy, Asher sensed tension in the air. Ty’s emotions were always volatile enough to be felt tangibly.
Something’s wrong, something’s wrong
, hammered in her brain.
    “Ty?” she called again, and a hint of fear touched the word. Asher had struggled to a sitting position before she saw him. The moonlight was enough to allow her to see that his eyes were dark and fixed on her face. It was also enough to let her see that they were cold. Her pulse began to race. “Couldn’t you sleep?” she asked, struggling to convince herself it was all her imagination.
    “No.”
    Asher laced her fingers together as she swallowed. “You should have woke me.”
    “Why?”
    “We—we could have talked.”
    “Could we?” Cold anger filled him. “We can talk as long as I don’t ask any questions you don’t want to answer.”
    She’d been expecting the showdown, but not like this. His resentment was already wrapping around her. Still, he had a right, and she’d put him off too long. “Ty, if it’s answers you want, I’ll give them to you.”
    “Just like that?” he snapped, rising. “Just ask and you’ll answer. Nothing more to hide, Asher?”
    Stung by his tone, she stared up at him. “It wasn’t a matter of hiding, Ty, not really. I needed time—we needed time.”
    “Why was that, Asher?” he asked in a tone that was uncharacteristically cool. She felt a shudder zip down her spine. “Why was time so important?”
    “There were things I wasn’t sure you’d understand.”
    “Like the baby?”
    If he had slapped her, Asher couldn’t have been more stunned. Even in the moonlight he could see her face go white. Her eyes grew huge and dark and desperate. “How . . .” The words wouldn’t form. Though they raced around in her mind, Asher seemed incapable of forcing any through her lips. How had he found out? Who had told him? How long had he known?
    “Eric,” she managed, though the name threatened to strangle her. “Eric told you.”
    Sharp disappointment cut through him. Somehow he had hoped it hadn’t been true that she had conceived and rejected another man’s child. “So it’s true,” he exclaimed. Turning from her, Ty stared through the window at the darkness. He found he couldn’t be logical or objective. It was one thing to understand the concept of freedom of choice, and another to apply it to Asher.
    “Ty, I . . .” She tried to speak. All of her worst fears were hurtling down on her. The gulf between them was already tangible and threatening to widen. If only she had been able to tell him in her own way, in her own time. “Ty, I wanted to tell you myself. There were reasons why I didn’t at first, and then . . .” Asher shut her eyes. “Then I made excuses.”
    “I suppose you thought it was none of my business.”
    Her eyes flew open again. “How can you say that?”
    “What