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‘Georgia! Can we talk?’ He regretted the involuntary harshness of his voice, regretted it more when, with every appearance of deep reluctance, she turned to him and he saw her face. It was wet with tears, and the brilliance of her eyes was dulled by a deep inner anguish that made his breath catch in his throat.
The desire to go to her, to hold her, comfort her, was strong enough to make him shake. He denied the impulse firmly. Getting close to her was dangerous. He didn’t need reminding of the mindless mistake he’d made earlier in the day.
He stuffed his hands in the pockets of the robe he was wearing and said as impartially as he could, ‘Something’s obviously troubling you. Want to talk about it? Or wouldn’t that help?’
Georgia swallowed painfully; she was beyond coherent speech. If she tried to get one word out past the hot, aching constriction in her throat she would break down in sobs and humiliate herself. She’d done enough of that this afternoon.
Besides, the letter she’d discovered in the desk drawer and had only just finished reading when he’d walked in had knocked the stuffing clean out of her. For the moment she had nothing to fight him with.
Wordlessly, she held out the paper, and he took it, distancing himself, though, going to the other side of the room and leaning against the ornately carved footboard of the bed. The frown line between his eyes deepened as he read. Though whether that was down to the dimness of the light on that side of the room or the contents of the letter, she didn’t know.
The contents. Already the words were branded on her brain.
My dear Georgia,
I’m writing because I haven’t the courage to phone and beg for a face-to-face meeting. I have so much to apologise for. For treating you shamefully since your birth, for not being able to love you as a mother should. For refusing to have you back at Lytham. The list goes on—
Is it too much to ask that we meet and try to build bridges? I know I don’t have the right to ask anything of you. But it would mean so much to me. And perhaps mean something to you.
There was no more. Vivienne hadn’t finished writing the letter before something had made her leave Blue Rock so precipitately. And she had been killed in her car before she’d had time to write again.
Georgia watched Jason walk slowly back to her side, his tall, lean body dominating her, the intense sexual awareness making her heart turn over.
She didn’t want it, didn’t need it. Couldn’t cope with the basic instinct that had been with her since her teens. The only way she could handle it was by making him her enemy, fighting him.
She’d stopped fighting him this afternoon, and just look at what had happened!
Since reading the unfinished letter the fight had gone out of her, so perhaps he’d do the decent thing and leave her to mourn the loss of the reconciliation her mother had wanted, lost because she’d run out of time.
But he didn’t, simply lowered her defences to zero when he said compassionately, his dark, soft voice sending shivers down the length of her spine, ‘At least you have the comfort of knowing that your mother wanted to make amends.’
She dipped her head, afraid of baring raw emotion in front of him, but he tilted her head up with one finger, just under her chin, and she was forced to witness the smoky compassion in his eyes as he told her, ‘I knew, from the moment she came into Harold’s life, that she had little time for you. It used to cut me up, seeing your insecurities. I put her behaviour down to a rather selfish woman’s absorption in her new marriage, a new and wealthy lifestyle. But there was obviously more. It went way back to your birth. Can you tell me more? I’m not prying, but it might help to lay a few ghosts.’
In this gentler, more receptive mood he was doubly dangerous. The basic instinct to love this man, the blistering sexual chemistry between them, the tenderness… Right at this moment she was too weakened to resist.
‘Perhaps,’ she conceded, and slid the letter back into the drawer. She would take it with her when she went. Not the designer clothes her mother had adored, nor the jewellery she’d left behind. Just the letter. Because there, at last, was her means of forgiving the past.
‘Not here.’ He stepped back a pace as she stood up, careful not to touch her, but his eyes were kind.
She mentally excused her meek compliance. Perhaps that was what she needed right now. Perhaps kindness from the man who had betrayed her, turned his back on her when she’d so badly needed him, would help her recover from the shock of finding that letter.
She needed to know that he was capable of having consideration for her, benevolent feelings. It would help her to know that the love of her young life hadn’t been wasted on a heart that was completely black, just as she was beginning to understand that her mother hadn’t meant it, not deep down, when she’d said she never wanted to see her daughter again.
Passing the back of her hand over her still aching forehead, she followed him from the room, and he told her, ‘We could both use something to relax us, I guess. Hot milk and whisky should do the trick.’ He could do with a stiffener, but her need looked greater than his. The dark rings around her eyes, the tight cast of her features, made her look brittle—as if, carelessly handled, she could break into a million pieces.
He pushed open the kitchen door and leaned in to flick on the lights, waiting for her to precede him. Almost as though, Georgia thought, he wanted her under his eye, to make sure she didn’t run and hide.
Entering the room ahead of him, she made for the cane two-seater against the far wall, sinking down on to the squashy cushions where Blossom took her ‘little breathers’.
Her adrenalin supplies had all dried up, she decided as she watched him pour milk into the pan he’d selected, then slosh what looked like a suspiciously huge amount of spirit into two earthenware mugs. No sign of the primitive urge to flee or fight.
His back to her, he remarked, ‘You’ve only visited the island once before, as I recall. Eighteen months or so after Vivienne married Harold.’
The unfinished business between them would have to wait; he wanted to get her talking about her mother because, whether she knew it or not, she needed to. His gut instinct to care for her didn’t surprise him. It had always been there, ever since their first meeting. In spite of everything, the need to protect her surfaced naturally now, as if it had been programmed into him.
He handed her the mug of hot, whisky-laced milk and perched at the end of Blossom’s sofa, his own mug cradled in his hands, knowing he had to be careful not to appear to pressure her.
Georgia nodded, taking a tentative sip of the hot drink. The combination had sounded pretty unpalatable to her, but the hot creamy milk took the fire out of the spirit and went down easily. Leaning back against the cushions, she told him, ‘After that first time, they never brought me back. As you know, I usually spent the long summer holidays between Sue and her family and Lytham. But Mother loved this place. They came often.’
