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But, oh, she wanted that truce he offered! Wanted it so much that the need was like a bruise in her heart, aching unbearably. Just for a day, he had said, and the thought of twenty-four hours of peace with him was the best birthday present she could imagine.
‘Lily?’ Ronan prompted when she couldn’t answer, and the intensity with which he used her name shocked her into speech.
‘All right,’ she said jerkily. ‘I think I can manage that.’
In the end it was surprisingly easy. Having declared a truce, Ronan went out of his way to be as charming and attentive as only he knew how. The day sped past, their trip out a delight, and in the evening, after she had changed into a bronze velvet shift that mirrored the colour of her eyes, Ronan took her out to dinner.
And that was when the only small flaw in Lily’s enjoyment forced her to recall that things were not quite as perfect as they seemed. Because the restaurant Ronan had chosen was, for obvious reasons, not the one that was their absolute favourite in the area. He couldn’t take her there and still hold to the terms of their truce because it had been there, just three weeks after he had met her, that he had asked her to marry him.
But with Ronan in his present mood it was possible to pretend that even that had never happened. The delicious food and wine helped too, and by the end of the evening Lily was able to turn to him and say, with genuine honesty, ‘I’ve had a wonderful birthday, Ronan, the best in years! Thank you so much. I really did enjoy everything…’
He wasn’t listening, his attention apparently drawn to something unseen behind her back. There was a strange, secretive smile on his lips, and those steely eyes seemed to gleam in what she could only describe as anticipation.
‘Ronan? What…?’
Some faint sound, a flurry of activity, made her curious. She half turned her head, saw the cake in a waitress’s hands, then froze in horror.
Flames. Dancing golden flames dazzling her eyes, so close to her that she could feel their heat on her skin. She could hear the faint hiss and crackle as they burned, catch the smell of the drifting smoke.
‘No!’
Panic closed her throat, her heart racing painfully, pounding the blood through her veins until her head swam sickeningly.
‘Happy birthday, Lily.’
Through the spinning haze she heard Ronan’s voice, blurred and distorted. There was no way that she could move or respond. Even worse, there was no way she could communicate her fear.
‘Lily?’
Her eyes were fixed wide, staring in terror. Her whole body was stiff with fear and rejection, one hand covering the mouth that was open in a silent scream.
Fire. Inside her head the delicate glow of the candles was transformed into a raging inferno, a white-hot blaze that raged through everything, burning up all she had ever held dear. Shattering, destroying, killing.
‘No!’
She heard the high-pitched cry with a strange objectivity, only realising it was her own voice, tight with panic, after a couple of confused seconds.
‘No! No! Oh, God, no!’
‘Take it away!’
Another voice, cool and incisively authoritative, cut through the maelstrom of fear inside her head as Ronan leapt to his feet, one strong hand going out to push the waitress aside.
‘Take the bloody thing out of here—now!’
A tall, powerful form came between her and those dreadful flames, the bulk of his chest and shoulders blocking out the sight of them, that terrible, flickering light. She was gathered up into strong, comforting arms, lifted from her chair and held tight against the heat of his body, her head against his chest where his heart raced almost as frantically as her own.
‘Lily, sweetheart, it’s all right. You’re safe—quite safe.’
Safe. The word seemed to reverberate round and round inside Lily’s skull in a disturbing echo of her own scream of panic.
Safe! The bitter irony of it broke through the icy grip of fear. It had her collapsing against Ronan’s strength, weak, desolate tears escaping from the corners of her eyes and spilling out onto the immaculate white cotton of his shirt.
Because even through the panic, the horror and the pain of the memories that the sight of the flames had revived in her thoughts, one other sensation stood out clearly—one that devastated her totally.
In the moment that Ronan had taken her in his arms she had known such a rush of pleasure and joy, such a glorious sense of security that it was like coming home at last after a long and terrible journey. If she hadn’t known before just how much she loved this man then she would have known it in that moment. Known that he had taken her heart and now held it captive so that her happiness, her future, her whole being was bound up with him for the rest of her life.
But the bitter truth was that her sense of security was built on a foundation so false, so rotten, that one unwary move would bring the whole edifice of their relationship crashing to the ground. Ronan felt nothing for her except the sexual passion he had demonstrated so clearly. He was perfectly capable of using her for his own satisfaction and then calmly walking away without a second thought. He had done it once already, and she knew he was quite prepared to do it again.
And, knowing that, Lily also had to face the way that her love for Ronan had exposed her to an even greater threat than the one posed by the flames. The emotional danger she was in was far, far worse than any physical hazard, and because of that, where Ronan was concerned, she would never, ever be safe again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘DO YOU feel ready to talk about it?’
It was perhaps an hour and a half since the sight of the candles on her birthday cake had flung her into a black pit of fear, one from which she had only managed to climb with great difficulty. During that time she had only been able to cling to Ronan, who had been a rock of strength and support to her.
He had half supported, half carried her from the restaurant, flinging a bundle of notes down on the table in payment for their half-completed meal, and taken her straight out to his car. He had driven home in a tight-lipped withdrawn silence, not speaking until she was installed on the settee in the sitting room and he had poured a large glass of brandy.
‘Drink this,’ he said gruffly, pushing the glass into her hand.
‘I don’t like brandy,’ Lily protested, earning herself an exasperated roll of his eyes.
‘Drink it!’ The command was too forceful to risk the consequences of disobeying.
As she sipped cautiously he poured himself his own drink—almost the same size as her own, she noticed—and flung himself down in the chair opposite, long legs sprawled out in front of him. But after only one swallow of the fiery spirit he abandoned his drink and sat up straight again, folding his hands together and resting his chin on them as he regarded her with a brooding intensity that made her shift uneasily in her seat.
‘Are you going to tell me about it?’ he asked at last.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything. Every damn thing! Like why you acted as if the end of the world had come just because…’
The cutting edge to his voice concealed the way he had actually felt at that moment. He couldn’t describe what it had done to him to see her go to pieces like that, to see the fear and distress in her eyes and know that, however innocently, he was responsible. He had wanted to gather her up into his arms and never let her go. To tell her that he would keep her safe from everything from now until eternity. That she would have nothing to fear ever again.
But that sort of promise could only come from someone who loved her and whom she loved in return. He didn’t know what he felt right now, but he was deadly clear on how Lily regarded him. She would never accept such a promise from him; in fact she was far more likely to run a million miles in the opposite direction. A blazing sex-life like theirs was no foundation for long-term trust. He had forfeited the right to that when he had married her out of revenge, wanting only to hurt.
‘Just because of a few candles?’ Lily set her glass down on a nearby table with such force that she was frankly surprised to see that it didn’t shatter into a thousand pieces.
‘Just because those candles reminded me of the worst day of my life. The day when my whole life went up in flames, when I lost almost everything I ever cared about. The day my parents burned to death in their own home!’
He hadn’t expected that. His shock showed in the way his dark head went back, those stormy eyes widening as if she had actually reached out and slapped him hard in the face.
‘What happened?’ he asked, his voice sounding rough round the edges. ‘Do you feel ready to talk about it?’
His obviously uncomfortable reiteration of his original question told Lily how he was feeling without words needing to be spoken. The unexpected sight of Ronan, arrogant, successful, confident Ronan Guerin, actually at a loss for the right thing to say gave her an unexpected boost in a way that the potent effect of the brandy could never have equalled.
Pulling herself upright, she smoothed back the tangled strands of her disordered blonde hair, wiped nervous hands along the skirt of her dress, searching for the best way to begin.
‘It was just after Christmas—between then and the New Year. We still had the decorations up because we never took them down until Twelfth Night. Perhaps if we had…’
