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‘This isn’t about my career, Nikhil. At least have the decency to admit that. This is about you not wanting to open up to anyone. And my arrival messing up all your little rules that you have for yourself.’
‘I considered what was best for the company. That’s my job.’
‘And thank God it fits with your personal leanings. You’ve been trying to push me away ever since I came on board. And you’ve been hating yourself because you couldn’t do it.’
‘It has nothing to do with getting rid of anybody. It has to do with supporting your transfer to another ship when the doctor you were replacing is returning here anyway.’
‘No.’ She refused to accept it. ‘That’s a convenient excuse—because it also happens to fit. But it’s a side-effect; it isn’t the main reason. It isn’t your primary motivator. You endorsed that transfer because it also got me away from you. You have feelings for me; you just aren’t prepared to admit them.
‘But I won’t transfer,’ Isla stated flatly. ‘What are you so afraid of, Nikhil?’
He blinked. It was fleeting, but it was there nonetheless, and it told her that her hunch—this odd, alien sense—about him had been right.
Isla felt as though she was splitting in two. One part of her celebrated the fact that she knew this incredible, enigmatic man better than he even knew himself.
And the other part of her... That was terrified at the notion. Because she didn’t want to be connected with him—with anyone—again. Not after Bradley.
And yet you never felt you knew Bradley a fraction of the way you feel you know Nikhil, whispered a voice inside her head. You never wanted to.
‘You misunderstand.’ His cold voice dragged her back to the moment. ‘I’m not afraid. I’m never afraid.’
* * *
He knew it wasn’t true even as the defiant words left his lips.
He was more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. And not least because the way Isla looked at him right at that moment made him feel as though she could read every last dark thought engraved on the cold, hard stone that sat in place of his heart.
‘You were afraid the moment that message arrived at your cabin the other night, and instead of keeping it from me, as you would have done a week ago, you handed it to me to read.’
‘It was just a message, Isla.’
‘We both know it wasn’t. You let me into your life and now you’re regretting it. This is your way of pushing me away.’
‘It’s for your own good,’ he ground out.
‘Because you’re a monster?’ she asked scornfully, and he loved the way she sounded so fierce. For him.
‘Because in your head it’s somehow your fault that your stupid brother left you to suffer everything alone, and never came back?’
He wanted so much to believe her. He almost did—even though, unlike her, he knew the truth.
‘I told you that he came to the funeral?’ The words might as well have come out independently of his mouth. Certainly, independently of his brain.
‘Your father’s funeral, yes.’ She dipped her head carefully, after a moment.
‘He didn’t come to the grave, but he stood by a tree and watched. I saw the disgust in his eyes. Like he thought I should have done better for the old man. The bastard was lucky I even gave him that much.’
‘You didn’t talk to Daksh?’ Isla asked softly.
‘No more that he talked to me.’ Nikhil inclined his head curtly. ‘I looked up one moment and he was there, then when I looked up again he was gone.’
‘And that’s why you think you are this...monster?’
‘It’s what I am. Even he could see it.’
‘You’re not. You’re a man. And a good man, at that. But the sad part is that you will never take my word for it. I don’t matter enough to you.’
And he wanted to refute it, so fervently. But he couldn’t.
