He turned and walked away.
Constance stepped after him.“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Neil whirled back.“Does it matter?”
It shouldn’t.
The thought felt like a wound—but this fake engagement should never have happened.It had always been a bad idea, and it had been Neil who had plummeted them both into it.Why shouldn’t he be the one to get them out?
Constance knew all of that was true—and yet part of her still rebelled fiercely against the idea.
“You might do it wrong,” she shot back.
Neil let out a helpless, terrible laugh.His eyes were hollow behind his spectacles.
“Connie, if there is one thing in all of this we can be sure of, it’s that I’m probably going to do it wrong.”
Anger burst through her.“Don’t say that.”
“Because it’s not true?”Neil pressed mercilessly.
The veranda seemed to grow smaller.Constance’s head throbbed.“Why are we even talking about this right now?”
It took Neil a moment to answer.
She raised her gaze to him again as the silence lingered.His face was pale—his shoulders heavy as if burdened with some terrible weight.
“Because I’m a wretched actor.I’ve never been able to hide what I’m really feeling.And I just don’t know how long I can go on doing this.”
The words stung her with an exquisitely sharp hurt.
How long I can go on doing this.
“You mean pretending to be engaged to me,” Constance pushed coldly.
Neil gazed down at her through the cobalt gloom.“Yes, Connie.Pretending.”
The hurt stabbed deeper, writhing its way through years of other hurts—comments about beingdifficult, ora little too much sometimes.
Constance lashed out against it with the only weapon she could find.“It didn’t feel like pretending in the stepwell.”
Neil burst out with the opposite of the reaction she had expected.
“That’s exactly the bloody point!”he shouted, throwing out his arms as the words echoed down the empty walkway.
Constance shook her head, grasping the railing.“I don’t understand.”
Neil’s voice was raw and unsteady.“I know.”
And just like that, he spun on his heel and walked away.
For a moment, Constance stared after him, frozen in place by surprise.Then the surprise crumbled in a rising wave of furious desperation.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Constance growled—and ran at him.
She caught him by his golden scarf, whirling him around to face her—and hauled him down for a kiss.
He stiffened with shock for a breath—and then met her with a hot, wild fervor.
