Perfect Fit - Brenda Jackson [22]
“I’m sorry, Sage.”
Her heart felt heavy in her chest. The words he had just spoken had been the same ones he had whispered to her after they had made love over a week and a half ago. Now she had an idea why he had apologized, but she still needed for him to confirm it.
“That night we made love and you apologized afterward … You were apologizing for this, weren’t you? You were apologizing for losing all that money.”
He hesitated only briefly before answering. “Yes.”
Sage fought back the tears she felt forming in her eyes. The next morning she had asked him about it, giving him the perfect opportunity to come clean and tell her what he’d done, but he had chosen not to, leading her to believe things were all right. Instead, she had to find out this way.
She had put Erol’s name on her bank accounts not thinking she could not trust him to do the right thing. She suddenly felt like a fool. Pain, the likes of which she had never felt before, went through her when she thought of the money her grandmother had left her. Paula Dunbar had left all three of her granddaughters fifty thousand dollars. And now Sage felt that because she had been stupid and naive, her grandmother’s gift of love was lost to her forever. How could Erol have done this to her? To them? How could he have hurt her this way by taking away something so special? For that alone she doubted that she could forgive him.
Tears blinded her as she took off her engagement ring. Crossing the room, she walked over and offered it to him. “I can’t marry a man I can’t trust, Erol.”
He refused to take the ring. “No, baby, you don’t mean that. I know you’re upset, but that’s no reason to give up what we have. I’ll make it up to you, Sage, I swear I will. If I have to work day and night, I’ll replace the money, every penny of it, you got to believe that.”
Sage blinked back more tears. “Money can be replaced, Erol, but trust can’t. There can’t be a relationship or a marriage without trust, and you destroyed whatever trust I had in you by doing what you did.”
Since he wouldn’t take the ring from her, she placed it on his desk, then turned and walked out of his office.
After driving around for nearly an hour with no specific destination in mind, Sage pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot and brought her car to a stop. She couldn’t do anything but rest her face against the steering wheel as the tears continued to flow, still not believing what Erol had done. It was bad enough he had used the money in her savings, but then he’d also used money in her checking account, money that should have been used to pay bills. If he had needed sixty thousand dollars, that meant he had used eight thousand of his own money. It was obvious he had gotten so caught up in that investment deal he hadn’t thought rationally. How had he planned for them to pay the bills for this month? They both had large car payments, not to mention the rent on the apartment which was no small amount.
She jumped when her mobile phone rang. Knowing it was probably Erol, she refused to answer it. There was nothing he could say to her now.
Sage sighed deeply when the phone stopped ringing. She had to pull herself together. Going to their apartment was out of the question, since that would be the first place he would look for her and try to talk her out of breaking their engagement.
As much as she wanted to, she didn’t want to go to her parents’ home either, as least not yet. She wasn’t ready to tell them what Erol had done.
When the phone began ringing again, she ignored it. She needed someone to talk to and immediately thought of Rose. Turning the car’s ignition, she pulled away from the parking space after deciding to go to Rose’s place. Even if Erol called Rose looking for her, there was no doubt in her mind that after telling Rose what he’d done, she wouldn’t tell him a thing.
Rose opened the door, took one look