Eternally Yours - Brenda Jackson [81]
Clayton turned toward him. “There is no paradise. There never was and there never will be. The only paradise was the one that I concocted in my mind. But the lady has set me straight. The only thing she’s interested in is a surrogate family she can claim, and not a man who wants to love her.”
Justin took a good look at his brother, hearing the deep pain in his voice. And there was also a coldness, a hardness within Clayton that had never existed before, and he immediately knew the cause—rejection. Syneda had done something to Clayton no other woman had done. She had rejected him. She had taken the love he had never confessed to another woman and had thrown it back in his face. And from the looks of things, he wasn’t handling it too well.
“And the really funny thing about it,” Clayton continued, “is that I watched the two of you go through your bouts of pain, and I used to think to myself that it could never happen to me. I used to tell myself I was above all that, that there wasn’t a woman anywhere who could infiltrate my mind and my heart like that, and cause me that much pain, that much grief, that much anguish.” With studied calmness, he sat down in the chair at the round oak table. He dropped his forehead to his joined hands, “Boy, was I wrong. I was so very wrong.”
He then held up his head and looked at his brothers. The hurt and pain were evident in his eyes, plain for them to see. “How do you handle telling a woman for the first time in your life that you love her, only to have her tell you that she doesn’t want you nor does she want your love. And that all she wants from you is a good time. And what’s really hilarious is that that’s the same thing I’ve been telling women for years.”
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then reopened them. “I guess it’s payback time. And for me, payback came all nicely packaged in the form and shape of a woman by the name of Syneda Tremain Walters. And she got me just where it hurts the most—straight in the heart. How am I supposed to handle something like that? How am I supposed to handle the hurt and the pain?”
Justin and Dex watched their brother in silence, neither knew what to say but both were familiar with what he was going through. They had been there. Giving advice had always been Clayton’s thing, even when the advice hadn’t been wanted.
Justin shook his head. Clayton had done more than just given advice to him and Dex. He had deliberately undermined and manipulated their love life. He had done what he felt had been necessary to straighten out their problems with the women they loved. Now Clayton’s own love life needed straightening out and Justin knew that his baby brother didn’t have a clue as to how to help himself.
Justin finally spoke. “Give her time, Clayton.”
Clayton’s response was a quiet laugh. “I’ve given her time, Justin. Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve given her too much time.”
“Then try being more patient with her,” Dex put in. “How you and Syneda even got this far without killing each other beats the hell out of me,” he said, shaking his head in amazement. “Both of your analytical and strongly opinionated minds are enough to rattle any relationship. Just chill and be patient. You know how I almost screwed things up with Caitlin by not being patient.”
Clayton took a long, deep breath. “I have been patient, Dex. I’ve been patient for over five months. But now I’m tired of fighting for what I want against what Syneda evidently doesn’t want. You can’t make someone love you, and I’m sick and tired of even trying.”
He stood. “The hurt and the pain aren’t worth it anymore.” He took another deep breath. “The two of you can let yourselves out. I’m going back to bed.”
He then walked out of the kitchen.
Clayton had lain across the bed for nearly an hour and knew from the