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‘There is nothing more to say, Max.’ She stopped dancing and looked up at him as she pulled off one earring, then with purpose she pulled the other off. ‘You have said all that needs to be said.’
‘Not yet I haven’t.’ What was happening?
She took his hand, turned it over and placed the earrings in his palm. Puzzled, he looked at them lying there like glittering icicles, but as he looked back at her he saw her reach up and begin to unfasten the necklace.
She was giving them back. Giving back her love—in the most public and final way.
‘Stop.’ The word came out as a feral growl but it snared her attention. She looked at him, her arms poised ready to unfasten the necklace, the diamonds setting off fireworks of sparks with each breath.
‘Why?’ The breathy yet fiercely determined word reared up at him like a stallion. Wild and untamed. Hurt.
This was it. This was the moment to put his cards on the table, the moment to tell her everything. Why here? Why like this? But as those thoughts raced in his mind he knew that if he didn’t do it now he’d never get another chance.
He took a deep breath, still holding the earrings, which now seemed to burn his palm. ‘Because I love you.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
LISA COULDN’T MOVE, couldn’t even blink as she looked at Max. She’d waited so long to hear those words that she’d given up hope of ever hearing. In desperation she’d come here tonight to give him back the diamonds and, by doing so, take back her love, her heart, because they were wasted on a cold and emotionless man like him.
A gasp from someone nearby warned her that everyone close to them had stopped dancing and had formed a circle around them. They were the centre of attention, just what he’d wanted to avoid, but she hadn’t planned it like this—so public. But somehow that didn’t matter, not any more. Her heart thumped hard and she couldn’t take her eyes from Max’s.
‘I should have said it a long time ago.’ Regret filled his voice, but she wasn’t going to be lured in by such tactics.
She lowered her hands so that he didn’t see how much they were shaking. ‘Yes, you should have. A long time ago, but you didn’t feel it, did you, Max?’
He stood just an arm’s length away but it might as well have been across the other side of the room. He was still closed off, still behind that barrier of steel. Those words he’d just said, the words she’d so longed to hear didn’t have a ring of truth in them.
‘Just as you didn’t trust me enough to truly let me in,’ she continued. Now that the floodgates of all her pain were open she couldn’t stop. ‘Even when I’d shared all the darkness from my past. When I’d told you everything that had made me so certain that I didn’t want you in our child’s life unless you could be there all the time, every step of the way. Even then, Max, you didn’t open up to me. You couldn’t tell me about your mother even though I was pregnant with your child, forcing you to face all that childhood pain and anguish again.’
He stood rigid, tall and proud, seeming to deflect all the emotion pouring from her. She wanted to pummel his chest with her clenched hands, anything to show him her frustration. But she couldn’t, not when all around them the party seemed to have stopped, all attention turned on them.
‘It was too painful, too raw to share. I guess I’ve never come to terms with losing my mother so young.’ He frowned at her. ‘How do you know?’
‘Angelina told me.’ She lowered her voice, gentled her tone as a wave of sympathy rushed forward like an incoming tide. ‘She told me all about your mother, the tough decision she’d had to make.’
‘Angelina?’ He frowned at her.
‘She’s hurting too, Max. You’re shutting her out. Denying her your love.’ Lisa let the truth flow from her. If nothing else came of this conversation maybe she could make things better between him and his sister, who deep inside was still the little girl who’d grown up with barely a memory of her mother and a cold, distant brother she believed hated her.
‘Ten minutes to midnight.’
The excited remark of another party-goer further away roused some of their spectators, eager to get the champagne needed to toast in a new year, but Lisa held Max’s gaze, implored him with her eyes to understand her, to forgive her for saying all this here.
‘We should talk about this somewhere else. I didn’t intend such a public goodbye.’ She began to move, to walk away, hoping he would follow her. Instead he grabbed her wrist.
‘Lisa, I couldn’t tell you. If I did it would have meant opening my heart, letting love in and love has only ever caused me pain—and loss.’
