Intercepted by Love: Part 2 (Playing the Field #2) by Rachelle Ayala Read Free Book Online Page B

control myself when you can’t control yourself?”
    Her mouth gaped open and snapped shut while her face turned all shades of pink. “That’s not true. Did you know I was afraid of taking this job because I didn’t want to run into you? I held off from replying for weeks worried that LA wasn’t big enough for the two of us.”
    “What are you afraid of?” He leaned toward her, almost nose to nose. “Tell me, Andie. I already promised you I’d never hurt you. Don’t you believe me?”
    “You already did. You got some other woman pregnant.”
    “That happened before I met you. I can’t change the past.”
    “You can change the future, for you and your child.” Her eyes were steady on him. “Thank you for dinner, Cade, and thanks for the place to stay. But we weren’t meant to be, and that’s all there is to it.”
    All the hopes and dreams he’d held onto the past five months collapsed in front of his eyes. How could he have been so mistaken? She’d told him he was precious to her, no matter what.
    Cade clenched his fists and stood, walking to the floor-to-ceiling window. He knocked his forehead against the glass, his gaze focused on the astounding view that suddenly seemed hollow.
    “So you’re saying you’d never adopt a child of mine? That you couldn’t see yourself caring for him? Can you not forgive me a mistake I made before I met you? Or is it that I don’t deserve your love since I screwed up? I’m worthless and will always be no good in your eyes.”
    “That’s a low blow, and you know that’s not true.” She rose from the sofa and jutted herself at his side. “It’s a big deal. You’re having a baby with another woman.”
    “I don’t love her, Andie. I love you.” He held his hand to her, but she didn’t take it. “I thought you knew. She being pregnant shouldn’t change anything.”
    Andie grabbed her hair with both hands and shook her head as if he wasn’t getting something. Without a reply, she strode from the sunken living room and into the great room.
    Cade followed her. “Answer me. Why should it matter? Isn’t it more important that I haven’t slept with anyone after being with you? That I’m killing myself being responsible and doing the right thing? I’m not turning my back on Roxanne and the baby, but at the same time, I shouldn’t be blamed for my past.”
    Andie stopped at the base of the spiral staircase. “You don’t really know what love is, Cade. You think it’s all about rewarding you a gold star because you did something right for a change. I’m sorry, it’s not all about you.”
    “Show me what I’m doing wrong.” He hated the desperation in his voice. He’d never known why his mother gave him over to foster care, or why he was shunted from one home to another just when he thought he’d been accepted. “No one ever showed me. They always left or sent me away.”
    Andie halted on the first step of the staircase. She was face to face to him, almost eye level. “It’s not a do this, do that, and then it happens. It just has to be.”
    “But I thought we had something there, back in Itasca. I thought …”
    “I didn’t know the real you back in Itasca. Sorry.”

Chapter Eight
    A ndie slammed the door to her movie theater bedroom and flung herself on the huge bed. This room was clearly Cade’s room with its stark clean lines, black and silver color-blocked velvet bedspread and the large movie screen. Andie pushed a button and the velvet curtains closed over the screen. There. One less distraction. She pushed another button, and the room darkening shades retracted upward.
    Another stunning view, this one higher up than the sunken living room. The streams of red taillights contrasted with the white headlights on the freeway below, and in the distance, the City of Angels glittered.
    What was she going to do about Cade? It had taken all of her will power to walk up the spiral stairs, to turn her back and leave him hanging there. The Cade she