Here to Stay by Debra Webb Read Free Book Online Page A

now,
when he was too weak to fight the hunger for what he knew he could
never have.
    She fastened her gaze back on his and folded
her arms solemnly under her breasts. “You took advantage of me and
you know it. How could you…” She hesitated and moistened her lips
before she began again. “How could you have…?”
    “Made love to you?” he offered. She flinched.
Anger swirled, replacing the queasy feeling in Nathan’s stomach.
She was as cool as ever. Paige, the reasonable…the attorney at law.
Daddy’s little girl. Using her legal mind to dodge questions. “I
was out of my mind with grief. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” And I
was still in love with you .
    “Well, at least you got the ‘not thinking
clearly’ part right.”
    “Let’s drop it, okay?” Nathan took a deep,
steadying breath. His brain throbbed inside his skull. He wasn’t in
any condition to be getting ticked off right now.
    “No. I won’t drop it.” Her hands went to her
hips. “When are you going to admit you’re as much to blame in all
this as me—maybe more? After all, you’re the one who got
married.”
    Nathan cocked an eyebrow. She was angry—good.
He had never liked being angry alone. And she was definitely
propelling him in that direction. “You left me, Paige. You were too
busy listening to daddy to care about me.”
    “My father is not the issue.”
    Nathan smirked. “You don’t get it, do you,
Blondie—”
    “Don’t call me that,” she ordered. Her blue
eyes blazed with indignation.
    “Your daddy has always been the issue. If you
didn’t live under his thumb, you could see it. Dear old dad is the
one who ensured that you went away to that fancy school. His sole
motivation was to keep you away from me.” The same old bitterness
he always felt when he thought about Paige’s father reared its ugly
head. Why couldn’t he have a reasonable conversation with the
woman? Hell, he couldn’t even have a reasonable thought about her!
“And look how well it worked.”
    “As I told you before, you don’t know
anything about me now. You have no idea where I work or live.
Nothing. You know nothing!”
    “I know that you chose your daddy over me. I
know that.”
    Paige shook her head. “You really believe all
of this is my fault and you’re the innocent victim.”
    “Close enough,” he told her, his jaw
clenched. Damn, his head hurt.
    “I guess we don’t have anything else to
discuss, then.” Her eyes remained on his for a moment before she
pivoted and headed toward the door.
    Every ounce of his anger and bitterness
suddenly drained away, leaving Nathan weak and hurting. The guarded
expression he had seen in her eyes before she turned away worried
him. Was she ready to give up? Go back to Memphis and never come
back? Isn’t that what he wanted? No matter how much she had hurt
him, Nathan couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again.
These past five years had been pure hell.
    “Is that how you really want to leave it?” At
least the question had stopped her departure. He had no idea what
he’d say next. In his present condition, he was lucky his brain
even worked at all.
    She turned to face him. The pain he saw in
her eyes tugged at his battle-scarred heart. “No, Nathan, it’s not.
I wanted us to be friends…to work all this out.”
    Her choice of words resurrected the pain and
bitterness a hundredfold. “Friends,” he muttered, stepping toward
her. “Like it used to be.”
    She nodded, her features drawn in wary
anticipation. He saw her ready herself to make a dash for the door.
Paige knew better than to be afraid of him, yet, somehow, she
seemed to be.
    “You want me to forget the dreams we
shared…forget what we meant to each other? Can you pretend it never
happened?”
    “Nathan.” The muscles of her neck worked as
she swallowed tightly. “Why can’t we just get past all that and go
from here? Be friends.”
    “I can do without friends like you,” he
snapped.
    She wavered under his