Private 02 - Private Paradise

ass out and tell a woman I love her she doesn't even believe me.” He shook his head, his lip curling in self disgust. “I know you won't believe this either, but I've only fed you a line once in my life. And that was when I told you what we had didn't matter and that I was just hooking up.”
    Carla's brain whirled as she processed what he was saying. She felt like the world was careening off its axis, the hard truths she'd accepted a long time ago upending all around her.
    His eyes met hers, hard, resigned. “I don't know if it was your intention to get me back for hurting you. My guess is no, since you don't think I really care about you anyway. But be happy knowing you got your revenge.”
    He turned away and started to empty another desk drawer. Carla's tongue finally unstuck from the roof of her mouth. “How?” she asked again. “How am I supposed to believe that you would show up here and all of a sudden you're in love with me after only a week?” She didn't believe it was true, yet she couldn't keep the hope from surging in her, straining against the tight rein she kept on it.
    Sam turned to her again, and this time there was no anger, no disgust on his face. Instead he looked rueful and a little sad. “You don't get it. It's not all of the sudden. It's been all along. I fell in love with you that summer. And when I saw you here, that first day, I realized I still am.”
    Her heartbeat echoed in her head. God, she wanted to believe him. “If you really loved me, how could you treat me like that?”
    Shame darkened his features. “Because I was a an immature coward, afraid my father was right. That if you ditched your scholarship for me, pretty soon you'd realize I was a loser who was going nowhere, and totally unworthy of a girl like you. I couldn't face that, so I made sure I pushed you away before you could leave me.”
    “ Your father said that to you?”
    His mouth pulled into a humorless smile. “Every chance he got.”
    Suddenly the years between them disappeared, and she remembered that day his father came to visit, how everything had changed after that. Remembered too, Sam's comments about being stupid or never amounting to anything. All along she'd dismissed them, thinking someone as hot, charming and so obviously confident couldn't truly believe that about himself.
    Was it just a front? Used to cover up the scars left by a father who told him over and over how worthless and unlovable he was?
    Her already battered heart ached for the vulnerable boy he'd been. But as hurt as that boy had been, that hadn't given him the right to pass the trauma onto her.
    As though reading her mind, Sam said, “I'm not trying to make excuses for myself. I know what I said was unforgivable. And I know it was stupid of me to think now that I've done something with my life I could show up here and get a do-over, get you to fall in love with me again.”
    “ That's really why you came? For a do-over?”
    He gave her a rueful smile. “Not exactly. When Chris first told me about your situation, I thought I could do you a favor, make up a little bit for the way I treated you.” His smile faded. “Then I got my first look at you in over ten years and I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.” His eyes turned molten, and she felt her skin flush with an answering heat. “I realized in that moment I'd never stopped loving you. That I'd never wanted anything more than I wanted to be with you.”
    Carla took a step closer even as her brain frantically analyzed the situation, trying to figure out his angle. It wasn't more sex―he'd already landed her in bed without stories of heartbreak and wanting second chances.
    It wasn't the job―he was clearly ready to resign.
    The only other possibility was that this was all part of a plot to pull her back into his web, make her fall in love with him all over again, all the while planning to crush her again. Which would make Sam unbelievably cruel, even diabolical.
    Everything inside her rebelled against that idea. Yes, Sam had hurt her, but she could easily imagine pushing someone away to avoid getting hurt and causing collateral damage in the process.
    Hadn't she done the same, she realized in a burst of enlightenment, when she'd laughed at Sam when he told her he loved her? Dismissed his words as meaningless because she was afraid to believe, to open herself up to hurt.
    She felt a pinch of shame, along with a dawning realization that there was only possibility