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He caught the slight query in her long-lashed golden eyes and his heart hurt.
She’d twisted her hair up on top of her head this morning, and feathery tendrils had escaped to frame her lovely, sun-kissed face. The chocolate-coloured top she was wearing left her golden arms and most of her slender shoulders naked, lovingly cradled her firm breasts and then came to a full-stop, leaving several inches of midriff bare above the waistband of her tiny white shorts.
Tantalising, sexy, incredibly desirable. The hard edges of the Georgia who had come back into his life such a short time ago had been rubbed away now. Their time together, after the misconceptions of the abortion that never was had been cleared away, had done that for her. They had both needed an escape from reality, needed their fantasy time, their healing time.
But now it was time to end it, to draw a line under this period of adjustment and move on.
Long after she’d fallen asleep in his arms last night he’d lain awake, thinking it over. Nothing lasted for ever, not even paradise. He’d known it would be difficult to say goodbye, but hadn’t realised just how difficult until he’d seen the query in her eyes.
Now he had to answer it.
‘It’s a possibility,’ he responded to her suggestion. ‘But unless you’re confident you can handle a boat, I wouldn’t advise it.’ Something twisted fiercely in his gut at the thought of walking out of her life. He ignored it because he had to, and explained gently, ‘I won’t be with you. There’s an air taxi out later this afternoon, and I’m hoping to arrange a connecting flight from St Vincent. Failing that, I’ll book into a hotel in Kingstown and wait on standby.’
For long, silent moments she didn’t understand what he was saying, and then she did. Their island idyll was over, and the drag of disappointment went right down to her toes.
She recovered immediately. For pity’s sake, they didn’t need azure seas and sparkling sunshine to be happy! Wherever he went, she needed to be. Besides, he had a high-profile job to get back to, and he took his responsibilities seriously.
‘Of course.’ She flashed him a commiserating smile. ‘You’ll need to get back to work; I understand that. No problem. I’ll come with you.’
She drained the last of her coffee, making rapid mental plans. Do his business here, a forty-minute boat trip back to Blue Rock, pack, tell Blossom and Elijah goodbye. Assure them she had no intention of selling up, that their home, their livelihood was safe. And forty minutes back again to catch the late-afternoon air taxi—Elijah would ferry them. No problem.
Her soft, kissable mouth was set in the determined line he had
come to know so well, and her golden eyes were glittering with the excitement of moving on. But it wouldn’t work, couldn’t work.
He would never want another woman the way he wanted her, but that was his problem, and he wasn’t going to compound it by allowing the relationship to go any deeper. Any deeper and he’d be bound to her for ever. And he couldn’t do that with the spectre of Harold in the background.
Harold, whether he’d been telling the truth or not about who had been coming on to who, had caused the complete breakdown of Georgia’s already troubled relationship with her mother. Yet he’d flown out to New York, after Vivienne’s funeral, and everything had been hunky-dory. Harold had kept all her letters—which Jason hadn’t been able to bring himself to read—and lunched with her at monthly intervals after her permanent return to England.
Jason had tried to dismiss it as quasi-fatherly interest, but he hadn’t succeeded. One look at the spectacularly gorgeous new Georgia, coupled with the knowledge of what his stepfather had been like—and knowing what he’d known about the legacy—had turned ugly suspicions into near certainties.
And she’d clinched the whole thing herself. He recalled the taunt he’d flung at her, not believing she’d refused Harold’s advances—‘Because as sure as God made little green apples he wouldn’t have left his entire fortune to you if you had.’ He’d hated himself for the jibe even as the words had left his mouth. But she’d simply given him that cool, clever look of hers and calmly congratulated him on how astute he’d become.
That certainly hadn’t been the hot denial he knew he’d been secretly hoping for. It had made him hate her for what she’d become.
Yet, looking at her now, he could only want her, couldn’t hate her. The violent emotion had been stopped in its tracks the moment he’d learned the truth about what had happened to their unborn child.
His heart had bled for her, for what she must have gone through, and the rest, as they say, was history.
But he couldn’t tell her why there was no future for them. Not if he wanted to keep his sanity. He couldn’t spell his reasons out; he couldn’t humiliate her that much.
She was verbalising her plans for a swift getaway, and he cut across the breathless words, explaining gently, ‘Georgia—I’m a senior partner now; I don’t have to get back if I don’t want to. In my position, it’s easy to delegate. But it’s time I went.’ High time, if he didn’t want to become totally, irretrievably addicted. ‘And I think it’s best if you stay on, finish your holiday.’
He watched her eyes widen, some of the animation leave her face, and had to force himself not to retract those words, take her in his arms and tell her he wanted her with him always. Needed her.
He had to make himself say, ‘We both needed these last few days. Needed to close the circle, give each other back the peace that the last seven years of misunderstanding deprived us of.’
And for him that was the truth. The whole truth. He had been able to put what she had become out of his mind, concentrate solely and completely on his instinctive need to make her happy and, yes, to make love to her, possess her utterly and wholly.
‘And now it’s time to draw a line under the past, close the book and go our separate ways.’ The words stuck in his throat, he had to push them out, and in doing so probably sounded harsher, colder, than he’d had any intention of doing.
He regretted that, hated the look of shock in her eyes, the way her colour fell away beneath her golden tan, hated himself for being the cause of it. He had to remind himself that Georgia could look after herself now; she didn’t need him.
She was more than financially secure, she was an extremely wealthy woman, and if she needed physical consolation—and it was his guess she would, and soon, because she was one hell of a sexy lady—then she had her live-in lover to fall back on.
He had actually forgotten the guy’s existence, but reminding himself of it had stopped him doing what he’d been tempted to do—taking her hands, telling her he’d always be there for her, thus opening the way for future meetings, prolonging the agony.
‘If that’s what you really want.’ It had taken a few moments, but she was now back in control. Drawing on the harsh lessons she’d learned over the past seven years, she pushed the racking pain, the overwhelming feeling of loss and emptiness, right to the back of her mind. ‘Then it’s absolutely fine by me.’
