“I know it’s Jonathan,” Betsy said quietly. She placed her hand on her daughter’s forearm. “I tried to warn you before, honey. He’s not your type. He’s too old and too experienced in the ways of the world. If you insist on falling for him, you’re going to get hurt.”

“Too late for both,” she whispered and tried to fake a smile. “Oh, well.”

Betsy looked stricken, then leaned toward her and pulled her close. “I’m so sorry.” She hugged Cynthia and rocked slightly, as she had when her daughter had been a young girl. “Is there anything I can do?”

Cynthia tightly closed her eyes and tried not to cry. Crying would only make it worse. Right now the pain made it nearly impossible to breathe, but if she gave in to tears, it would grow and consume her. She had to maintain control at any cost.

“This is all my fault,” Betsy said. “It’s Frank. You saw how we loved each other and wanted that same thing for yourself. You never dated much. I didn’t worry about it but I see now that I should have.”

Cynthia raised her head and stared at her mother. “Because I wanted what you had? Is that so bad?”

“Because you weren’t willing to settle for anything else. You needed to be meeting all kinds of boys and trying to figure out which ones were for you. Instead you set your sights on an impossible dream. You’ve fallen in love with him, haven’t you?”

Cynthia nodded. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t love me back.”

“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.” Her mother stroked her back. “I know you don’t want to hear this now, but it will get better with time. The wounds will heal and you’ll be able to start over. Just promise me that next time you’ll stick with someone your own age. Someone with your own level of experience.”

She couldn’t imagine a next time. She’d barely given her heart away, only to have it returned all smashed and burned. Why on earth would she want to do that again?

Jonathan walked into the quiet house close to midnight. He’d had the first cab drop him off at the office so that he could think, then he’d called for a second one to take him home. He supposed that he was a coward along with a jerk, because in the back of his mind he knew that he’d been avoiding an encounter with Cynthia’s family. He didn’t want them knowing how he’d hurt her.

Not that he could expect them to stay in ignorance for very long. Betsy probably already knew what he’d done to her daughter. He stood in the darkened foyer and wondered how he could justify his actions. Then he knew he couldn’t. What he’d done was wrong. All of it.

He shouldn’t have made love with her, he should have stopped when he realized she was a virgin. Once that was done, he should have handled the situation differently afterward. He should have held her close and made her feel good about what they’d done. He should have sat down with her and talked until she understood the ramifications of what had happened. Together they should have redefined their relationship.

Instead he’d turned his back on her and ignored her. He’d hurt her desperately by going out with Martha Jean. Was there even one thing he hadn’t screwed up?

Jonathan couldn’t think of it, so he made his way to the stairs. He might not be able to change the past, but he could improve the future. The first thing he had to do was apologize. The second was to find out what she needed from him and do his best to provide it. Unfortunately, while Martha Jean wasn’t up to his standards, he wasn’t even close to Cynthia’s. Still, he was all she had right now.

He was going to have to make her see that she would be better off without him. That in time she would find a nice young man who still believed in all the things she did. Someone with whom she could have a future.

At the top of the stairs, he walked toward her room. As he got closer, he heard the sharp sound of a sob. It ripped through him, making him clench his hands into fists. He’d done that to her. He was to blame.

He’d been wrong to go out with Martha Jean. That had been the coward’s way out. Cynthia wouldn’t have done it. She was brave enough to face the consequences of her actions, regardless of what they might be. She was stronger than anyone he’d ever known. He admired her and wanted her. And he would prove his respect and admiration by never touching her again.

But first, he had to fix what he’d done wrong.

Chapter 12

Cynthia closed her eyes against the pain that filled her. Tears continued to spill down her face and she didn’t know how to make them stop. She’d told herself earlier that if she gave in and started crying, she would never be able to stop. Unfortunately she’d been right.

She loved him and he’d left her. She loved him and he’d gone to be with another woman. Right now he could be in her bed doing all those things with her that he’d done with Cynthia. That’s what hurt the most. Not his potential infidelity, but that when he’d been making love with her it hadn’t meant anything. If it had, he wouldn’t have been able to go to another woman’s bed so quickly and easily. She hadn’t been a person to Jonathan, she’d been a body.

She drew her knees to her chest and held her pillow tighter. Her mother had tried to warn her that he wasn’t for her. She tried to tell herself. But then she’d blindly fallen in love with him. As if she had a chance to make it work with a man like him. As if this really was a fairy tale and she was Cinderella and the handsome prince was going to make everything work out all right.

The pain inside of her grew until it threatened to consume her. She couldn’t breathe anymore. In an effort to gain control she told herself that the hurt didn’t matter, but she knew it did. She had responsibilities. However much she might be hurt now, she had a life she had to live. Somehow she needed to find the strength to see Jonathan again and do it in such a way that he wouldn’t know she’d been the least bit upset by what had happened tonight. She needed to face him with cool confidence, the veneer of sophistication firmly in place. He probably expected her to act like a child, but she would be the adult in the relationship. With her head held high.

In the morning she would get up and look him and the world in the eye. She would be strong. But for tonight, while she was all alone, she needed to lie here and ache.

A splash of light cut across her tightly closed eyes. She sensed and shifted, then looked up. Much to her horror, Jonathan stood standing in the doorway of her bedroom. She gulped back a sob and wondered what she was supposed to say or do. It was one thing to plan on a coolly, confident entrance to fool him, it was another to be caught in the middle of a heart-wrenching tearfest.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “About a lot of things. I’m sorry I didn’t know you were a virgin. I would have done things differently.”

“No,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “You wouldn’t have done anything at all. You would have run far and fast in the opposite direction.”

“Maybe. Or I might have taken things more slowly, making your first time better for you.”

She blinked. Tears cleared from her eyes and he swam back in focus. Better? Was that possible? “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“What about my apology for not holding you?” he asked. “I should have done that after we made love. My only excuse is that I was so surprised to find out the truth that I panicked. Twenty-six-year-old virgins aren’t something a man runs into every day.”

She sniffed. “I guess not.”

He took a step toward her. Light from the hallway spilled into the room, illuminating him in silhouette. She could see the shape of his body, but not his face or his expression. Unfortunately he could see her clearly, in all her puffy, blotchy glory. She flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Life was not fair.

“I also want to apologize for tonight,” he said, moving farther into the room. “I’d made plans with Martha Jean a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, I’d forgotten about them. After you and I made love, I was concerned about…” His voice trailed off. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her. “I had several concerns,” he amended. “Going out with her seemed to address a lot of them. However, it was wrong and the coward’s way out.”

She brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Is she…” Cynthia wasn’t sure what she wanted to ask, let alone how to phrase the question. “Is she important to you?”

He paused before speaking. He was close enough that she could see his determined expression. It was as if he had an agenda for their conversation and had every intention to get through it.

“Not in the way you mean. I’ve known Martha Jean for years. Her hobby is marrying wealthy men and then divorcing them. We get involved when she’s between husbands or fiancés. I find her uncomplicated. But tonight, it got complicated with her. Mostly because of you.”

“You don’t like a lot of complication in your life, do you?”

“It’s something I avoid at all costs,” he admitted, then traced the curve of her cheek with one finger. “You are a complication I didn’t expect and therefore forgot to avoid.” He hesitated. “Cynthia, you’re a bright, beautiful young woman. You have definite world views which I do not share. You see the best in people. I would imagine that one of your greatest goals is to marry and have a family.”

Her mind lingered on the word “beautiful” and she wanted to know if that was really how he saw her. Of course she couldn’t ask. “Don’t most people want to get married and have a family?”

“I suppose they do. But I’ve managed to avoid both for many years and I’m not likely to change that now.”