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‘No, you’re right, you shouldn’t,’ he said calmly.
‘But some of it was true,’ she declared tersely. ‘Your view on life is so different to mine that we’re poles apart—’
‘Cut the baloney, Sephy. At least say it as it is.’
Her breath caught painfully in her throat. Beneath the smooth, amusing, controlled exterior this was one angry man.
‘You don’t trust me; that’s it in a nutshell,’ he said coolly. ‘You’ve listened to rumour and innuendo.’
‘No, that is not it,’ she shot back quickly, a welcome flood of anger dispelling the momentary guilt and confusion. ‘You told me what to expect if I got involved with you and I don’t like it, okay? Not every woman wants a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of love affair, Conrad.’
‘A what?’ Dark colour flared across hard cheekbones and the sparks in his blue eyes warned her it wouldn’t take much for the smouldering rage to flare into a blazing fire.
‘I’m not capable of going into a relationship knowing it is destined to fail,’ Sephy said wretchedly. ‘That’s what I mean.’
‘Who’s talking about failure?’ he ground out. ‘Just because a couple move on to other partners it doesn’t mean they have to part acrimoniously or that what they shared is spoilt. My exes have always been quite happy and reasonable when the time has come for us to go our separate ways.’
‘How would you know that?’ she dared to challenge. ‘How would you know? You lay down the ground rules; you control the whole thing from beginning to end; you never let anyone get close to you! How would you really know what the other person is feeling? You fool yourself, Conrad. All the time,’ she said wretchedly.
‘I don’t believe this.’ If the whole thing hadn’t been so devastatingly horrible she might have found a glimmer of amusement in the astounded affront and scandalised resentment he was showing. ‘I really don’t believe what I’m hearing.’
‘You told me you weren’t capable of being close to anyone,’ she continued softly, knowing she had to say it all. ‘That love is a myth. That’s what you said, Conrad. Well, I can’t think like that. I could never give my body lightly. It would have to be a full commitment and I’d want the same promise of commitment back from the man I loved. It’s the way I’m made.’
‘And this man who let you down? Did he promise you full commitment and eternal devotion?’ he challenged grimly.
Oh, he was good. He was; she had to give him that. She had noticed the raised eyebrow so she should have known something deadly was coming.
‘No, he didn’t,’ she said bravely, her chin lifting proudly.
‘And yet you still loved him.’
‘It wasn’t like that, not like you’re assuming,’ she said tightly, praying for courage. ‘I never slept with David.’
‘You didn?
?t?’ His eyes narrowed and she could almost see that razor-sharp mind whirring and collating all the facts so far. ‘But since him you said—’
‘That I’ve only dated occasionally, yes.’ Perhaps it had to be this way for this ridiculous affair that wasn’t an affair to finish, she thought painfully as humiliation turned her cheeks vivid scarlet. Conrad Quentin liked his women experienced and well-versed in the art of love, and although he had known she wasn’t exactly a Mata Hari type he had thought—at twenty-six years of age—she had had some sexual experience.
The silence stretched and lengthened, but she was determined she wasn’t going to break it, although the hand that reached out for her coffee cup was shaking. She had drained the last of the coffee before Conrad said, his voice expressionless, ‘You should have told me, Sephy.’
‘That I’m a virgin?’ she stated baldly. The time for delicacy was over. ‘Why? It’s nothing to do with anyone else.’
‘I’m not anyone,’ he said sharply, before moderating his tone as he added, ‘Hell, don’t look like that.’
She couldn’t help how she looked; he ought to be glad she hadn’t dissolved into hysterical weeping the way she was feeling. Nevertheless, her chin went up a notch or two and she gripped her hands very tightly together under cover of the small pub table.
It had taken every drop of courage she possessed when she’d made the decision to leave her home town and move to London. The incident with David Bainbridge had shattered her self-confidence—which had always been pretty fragile anyway—and caused her to go into herself, but at the age of twenty she had known she had to climb out of the rut she’d made for herself and spread her wings.
The bedsit—which had been all she could afford—had been grotty to say the least, but she had persevered and worked hard and forced herself to go out on the occasional date so she didn’t fall into the trap of becoming a recluse.
Her salary had risen nicely, she had found the flat of her dreams and a whole bunch of new friends, and then had come the chance of bolstering her career by standing in for Madge for a few weeks or—as it had turned out—months.
Every step along the way she had had to make herself reach out and be resolute in her determination that the episode with David would not spoil her life. From the start she had ignored the whispering and the nudges and sly looks as word had got about, and even though it had nearly killed her she had held her head high and refused to hide away, licking her wounds in private.
All that couldn’t be for nothing, she told herself now. It was ironic that after all the years of keeping her feelings for the opposite sex in cold storage they had melted only for her to fall for the wrong man, but she would rise above this as she had risen above everything else. She loved him, she would always love him, but that was her problem, not his.
‘So.’ His eyes were still narrowed on her pale face. ‘Where do we go from here?’
