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‘It wasn’t a question,’ he censured gently.
But the arm he moved around her waist was less gentle, compelling her to move, to stay by his side as he led them, without another word of objection from her, the length of the hall and around the marble pillars to the ballroom itself.
‘I don’t know how to dance,’ she murmured, even as she walked with him.
‘You’ll remember. You once told me that you used to dance with your father at Christmas events.’
His voice was even, giving nothing away. Panic began to rise inside her.
‘The Zeke I knew didn’t know how to dance.’
‘Now I do.’ He shrugged. ‘So I guess all you really need to do is follow.’
And then they were on the floor with his one arm circling her waist, his other hand tucking one of her arms to his chest, drawing her to him, and then there was a jolt and everything...changed.
Tia couldn’t move, could hardly even breathe. It took her the longest time to realise that the jolt hadn’t been the room, but merely some forgotten, aged electricity that had arced between the two of them.
People were dancing, spinning around them like the multicoloured horses, helicopters and fire engines on the merry-go-round Seth had loved to play on at the park in the last town where they’d lived.
But it was as if she and Zeke were in their own little bubble, right in the centre of them. Staring at each other as if neither of them could work out if they were in their past or their present.
‘Are you going to put your other hand on me?’ he asked dryly, but there was a rasp to his voice that hadn’t been there a few moments ago. ‘Or do you intend to dance with your arm dangling awkwardly by your side?’
; She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She merely lifted her leaden arm and, somehow, placed it on his shoulder.
Even so, it felt surreal when he began moving, leading her smoothly, and she began to follow. As though they had done it a hundred times in the past when the truth was they’d never once danced a ballroom dance together in all their years as a couple.
‘Like the waltz we never had,’ he muttered unexpectedly in her ear.
‘At the wedding celebration that was never ours? We didn’t even have a wedding breakfast.’
The words were out before she could swallow them back.
‘That’s because we had no friends and family to share it with.’ His voice lacked any kind of emotion. ‘Anyway, we had lunch at the nearest country pub we could find.’ He shrugged. ‘It was better than burger and fries at the nearest fast-food joint.’
‘What the hell were we thinking?’ she whispered.
‘We weren’t,’ Zeke answered simply. ‘You were rebelling against your father and all his rigid rules. I thought if I had something—someone—back home waiting for me then it meant I would have something to anchor me and keep me safe on every mission.’
It didn’t surprise her at all that Zeke never once used the word love. So why did it leave her feeling so raw inside? So scraped out.
Perhaps because the truth was, despite his belief to the contrary, she hadn’t married him out of some misplaced sense of rebellion. She had married Zeke because she’d loved him. The only man she had ever loved.
Maybe, shamefully, still loved, if she was going to be truly honest with herself.
‘We were young,’ she managed at last, an attempt at an excuse, which she might not like but was infinitely less painful than the contempt and regret with which he seemed to view their marriage.
‘Worse. We were idiots,’ Zeke ground out furiously. ‘You were right that we were selfish and, because of it, you and your father fell out. I pushed you away. But even more unacceptable of all, our son has been fatherless for his entire life.’
She glanced at him, making no attempt to conceal her shocked expression.
‘Is that an apology?’ she asked at length.
Zeke gritted his teeth. It had always been a standing joke between them that he hated making apologies. He wondered if she’d ever known it was because growing up his father had beat him until he’d apologised for everything. From the lack of food to the fact it was raining on a day his old man had wanted to walk down to the pub.
‘It was an observation,’ he hedged after the silence got to him.
