Eternally Yours - Brenda Jackson [83]
He had made her his. He’d been the first man to capture her heart, making her irrevocably his. Syneda tilted her head back and drew in cold air, feeling the tears sting her cheeks. Her apartment was cold from the freezing weather outside, not unusual for New York the week before Thanksgiving. She quickly wiped away her tears.
Her tears were for all she had lost, at her own hands, because she hadn’t been strong enough to take a chance on love—the kind of love Justin had for Lorren, the kind of love Dex had for Caitlin. Clayton had offered her that and she had refused it.
Cassie Drayton Morgan had been right when she’d said, “It’s no fun being alone. Everyone needs someone to love and someone to love them…”
Syneda had never believed that until now.
And Clayton had been right when he’d said that what happened with her father did not concern them. It was time she got beyond that and moved on. And she was ready to do so. But first, there was something she had to do before she could finally put the past behind her. There was someone she had to visit.
Syneda had won the appeal.
Clayton leaned back in his office chair. He had just gotten word from a fellow attorney who was working on a similar case. He wanted to call Syneda and tell her how happy he was for her, and how proud he was of her. But he didn’t.
She had made it very clear things were over between them, yet he still wanted to talk to her. He still wanted to hear her voice. He picked up the phone and after hesitating a few seconds slammed it back down. The words she had said to him the last night they were together tore into him. “I don’t want your love, Clayton. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it.”
Clayton rose from his chair, balling his hands into his pockets. He was hurting in a way no person was supposed to hurt. He was hurting everywhere, both inside and out, and all at once.
He knew that although Justin and Dex had tried being supportive, they just didn’t understand. The problems plaguing his and Syneda’s relationship would not evaporate with time and patience. It would take love and trust, and she wasn’t willing to take a chance on either.
Clayton tugged at his tie, wishing he could rip it off and then do the same thing to his heart—rip it out. But something in him made him bite back both his anger and his frustration. He refused to let any woman make him lose his mind, his self-respect or his pride. In time he would get over her, he would make sure of that.
And no woman would ever get close to his heart again.
Syneda took a deep breath as she leaned against the huge wrought iron gate. Her plane had landed less than an hour ago and she had immediately taken a cab from the Dallas airport.
For the past eighteen years of her life she had avoided coming here. She used to tell herself that if she never came, her mother would never know the truth. Her mother would never know that the man she had died loving, trusting and believing in had let them down.
Syneda straightened and began walking across the stretch of velvet-green lawn. As she neared the area where the ground-keeper had instructed her to go, poignant memories of her childhood with her mother resurfaced.
The two of them had been close, almost inseparable, except for the time her mother was at work and she was at school. They had done a lot of things together. Although there hadn’t been plenty of money, her mother had worked hard and had taken care of their needs.
The short walk was finally over and as Syneda stood before the headstone, she felt renewed pain followed by a deep sense of cleansing. She knew by the