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SHE GLANCED UP at him, though he got the impression that it cost her dearly to do so. She watched him for what seemed like an eternity and, for a moment, he believed she was actually going to talk. To tell him...something that counted.
And then the shutters slammed down with a clang.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She forced a smile, trying to inch discreetly back a fraction. Not that there was anywhere to go in this tiny space.
‘I don’t believe that.’
She glowered at him, but he didn’t miss the way she swallowed. Hard.
He could push her. He wanted to. But something told Sol that would be counterproductive.
The moments ticked by.
‘Why would I?’ she demanded suddenly.
‘Why would you what?’
‘Why would I talk to you? Open up to you?’ Her voice sounded angry and pained, and raw all at once. It spoke to him in a way he recognised only too well. ‘When you wouldn’t dream of talking to me.’
‘I have talked to you,’ he lied. ‘I’ve invited you here. You’ve spent time with the kids only today.’
He made himself step back, pretending that her soft, plump lips weren’t still imprinted in his mind’s eye. And that the feel of her arms didn’t still sear through his palms. He reminded himself that it was purely physical, sexual attraction, even if it felt alien.
Because what else could it be?
‘You’ve told me lots about the kids, and the centre. Between the gala, and my visit, you’ve given me plenty of information. You’ve explained how there are lots of charities out there for young carers, and lots of volunteers, really good people, and how your charity is different. You’ve shown how it still isn’t enough. These kids need more.’
‘They do.’
‘I agree.’ She lifted her eyes to his, her gaze almost too intense to bear. ‘My point is, Sol, that, in all the talking you’ve done, the one subject you steer clear of is why you care so much.’
He hadn’t seen it coming, but he should have. He should have been ready for the question. In a way, he was. And yet it still had the power to wind him.
His hands dropped from her arms and he swung away—the moment lost.
‘Does it matter?’ he managed, amazed at how calm, how cool, he sounded when inside his heart was pumping blood around his body as though he was a gold medal winning sprinter.
Behind him, she seemed to ponder for a moment. Though whether about how to phrase her questions, or how she had come to ask them in the first instance, Sol couldn’t quite be certain.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I suppose that’s what I’m asking. If it matters.’
‘I don’t think I follow.’
‘No,’ she conceded, pulling her lips together as if she wasn’t even sure what she was saying. ‘It’s just that this you isn’t the image you tend to put forward of yourself. Solomon Gunn the playboy is well known, but it doesn’t fit with all of...this.’
She waved her hand around the construction site that was the centre.
‘I suppose I want to know which version of the man is really you. And if it’s this one, then wouldn’t you rather be Solomon Gunn, tireless advocate for young carers?’
‘No.’
She blinked.
‘Why not?’
Because it invited too many questions, too much scrutiny, his own childhood would inevitably come out and that wasn’t a side of his life he wanted people to see when they looked at him.
As it was threatening to do now.
