Justin didn't call. After three weeks he had neither called nor written to her. Was it merely pride that held his silence, or had he discovered that life without her wasn't so bad after all? On the flip side of the coin, she was finding life miserable without him.
Since she returned, she had a lot of time to think about things. Denton was right. She had been treating him disrespectfully. How could she have done that and not realized it? Maybe it was because she was so self-focused. That internal focus had ultimately cost her the relationship of a lifetime. If she hadn't been so certain that her father had sent him, things might have been different. If she had known that the pregnant girl who moved to California was his sister, she would have felt different about developing a relationship. It wasn't as though he hid anything from her. She had been so certain that he was making up stories - hiding his identity - that she had insulted him. No wonder he came to the wrong conclusion. She had been the one who hid so much. If she had simply confronted him and told him she knew Dad sent him, everything would have been brought into the open then.
She cleared her desk and turned off the computer. Tonight would be another lonely night in her apartment. There were offers for evenings out, but it wasn't the same without Justin. Maybe it would never be the same again. Even the beach wasn't the same. She was a different person now - hopefully a better one.
She stood and stretched. It was time to start putting her life back together. If Justin was going to call, he would have done so by now. Their relationship had been a bitter lesson.
A startled scream in the lobby was followed by a loud bang. Megan dashed around her desk. "Clarissa?"
In the lobby, she found the secretary on the floor, clutching her leg and moaning in agony. A chair lay on its side next to the wall.
"What happened, Clarissa?"
Mr. O'Hara erupted from his office and knelt beside Clarissa.
"What happened? Are you all right? Do we need to call an ambulance?"
Clarissa moaned again. "I think I broke my leg. I was trying to straighten that picture on the wall. The chair slipped out from under me." She hugged her leg and started to cry.
Megan reached for the phone. "I'll call an ambulance."
Clarissa tried to sit up. "Denton is supposed to be here any minute."
Mr. O'Hara urged her to lie back. "I'll stay here until he comes, and then we'll meet you at the hospital."