AllFreeNovel
Share Us
At least worrying about the storm prevented her from thinking too much about Nico. She really didn’t want to think about him, or about the future she had only just accepted could be hers but had been snatched away before she’d had a smidgeon of time to enjoy it.
As the minutes slowly passed the anger that had first seeded when she had hidden in the bathroom fertilised and began to grow.
Had any of it been real?
They were so good together. As a lover, Nico was incomparable. Or maybe it was her reaction to him that was incomparable?
It had certainly felt real. There had not been an iota of doubt in her mind that the hedonistic rush she had experienced in his arms had been reciprocated. Surely he had not faked his desire for her?
Her experiences with men were limited in the extreme. Stephen had been the first man to get anywhere with her, and it had taken him months of trying for her to agree to a date. After sleeping with him for the first time she had been completely underwhelmed but, having nothing to compare it with, had not been too bothered. She would have been perfectly happy never to see him again but he had been so keen it would have been cruel to end it. Or so she had thought. Maybe it would have been better to have ended it then, before he had time to become more infatuated with her.
She’d never had any illusions, though. Stephen’s infatuation had stemmed from her distance. Always he’d tried to chip away at her barriers, but he hadn’t been able to smash them down fast enough. Rosa was too accomplished at re-building them.
Those barriers had been for her own protection. Being rejected and turned away by her Russian foster mother, a woman she had come to trust and love, had been the last straw. She had sworn never again. It had not been conscious. It had been self-protection.
Hindsight was a wonderful thing. Only now could she see how badly she had treated Stephen. She had refused to let him in. And then, after it was all over, she had committed the cardinal sin and—
A bolt of lightning streaked past the yacht, illuminating the cabin in a brief prism of light.
Burying her head under a pillow, she tried to muffle out the storm and her tormented thoughts.
No, she thought. Whatever wrongs she had done to Stephen, surely she did not deserve this burning pain stabbing into her chest, or the nausea just a deep breath away from spilling out? She had never meant to hurt him—especially in the manner she had at their final parting. But she had been so low. So vulnerable. The man she had longed to share her birthday with—her husband—had been too busy to return home. And she had needed human company so badly. With Stephen it had never been real. Not for her.
What she and Nico had shared had been real. For two perfect days and nights it had been real. At least for her.
The cabin door opened and she threw the pillow off her head and snapped her head up.
Nico stood at the threshold and gazed at her, his hair sticking up all over the place.
Did he realise his shorts were undone, resting on his hipbones by the slimmest of margins?
For a moment she forgot to breathe.
‘I just wanted to check you were okay,’ he said, sounding uncomfortable.
‘Me? I’m fine.’ She didn’t know whether she wanted to kiss his face off or throw something at him.
‘Liar.’ His grin was weak. ‘I’ll leave you to sleep. Goodnight.’
About to wish him a goodnight in turn, Rosa opened her mouth. ‘Was any of it real?’
He cocked his head back. ‘Sorry?’
‘You and me? What we shared? When me made love? When we explored King Island together? When you treated me like a beautiful princess? Did you mean any of it?’
She watched his magnificent chest rise sharply before he nodded, his eyes a burning fire of intensity. ‘It was the best time of my life.’
His chest rose again and he twisted round to leave.
‘Don’t go.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Stay with me. Just for tonight.’
Leaning against the doorframe in a pose she found achingly familiar, he lasered her with his eyes, his brow knotted in concentration. ‘Do you know what you are asking?’
She nodded.
She knew exactly what she was asking. What they had shared had been the most incredible experience of her life. She had come alive in his arms and it had been glorious. But, more than simply wanting a repeat, she needed to reclaim something. Her pride. This time tomorrow they would be back on Butterfly Island and the forced intimacy between them would be gone. This would be her last chance to let things end on her terms. She would no longer allow Nico to dictate everything.
Whether he admitted it to himself or not, he had used her. It had not been intentional, that much she could appreciate, but it did not change the facts. My definition of that was for us to continue exactly as we were with sex thrown into the mix. Had he seriously thought she would want a relationship based solely on sex?
