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He shook his head. She didn’t know if he couldn’t, or simply wouldn’t find the words to explain. She just knew that anger was swiftly replacing the sense of contentment and completeness she’d been feeling only moments earlier.
‘What the hell, Ben?’
Her eyes were pricking with tears of shame, and she felt utterly vulnerable and exposed. She fought to hold on to the building rage. Anything was better than crying in front of him.
‘It’s not what you think. Just...leave the shirt, Thea.’
‘Leave the tee?’ She shook her head, bewildered. And then it dawned. ‘The scars?’
He raised his hand to cup her cheek but she batted him away, afraid that the gesture would start the crying. Once she started she didn’t think she’d stop.
‘We can have sex as long as I don’t see your scars?’ She could barely see through the tears.
Jackknifing off him, she stood up, grabbing the throw from the couch in a belated attempt at modesty, fervently ignoring the little voice in the back of her head which was trying to remind her that she, too, had her own trust issues. She might be upset with Ben now, but how upset would he be if he found out the secret she’d been keeping?
Her arms covered her abdomen, as if protecting the memory.
‘I can’t do this with you, Ben.’ She bounced her head from side to side. ‘Not any more. Every time I think we’re taking a step forward I let my guard down and you hurt me again.’
‘I know, and I’m sorry, Thea.’ Ben stood up, buttoning his jeans and reaching to pull her into his arms.
How she dodged him, blinded as she was, she didn’t know, but she bolted for the door.
‘Please leave, Ben. Not just for tonight. For good. I can’t be hurt any more.’
‘Thea, just give me time.’
She shook her head. They’d messed up exactly the way she’d feared they would, she thought bitterly.
‘I’m sorry, Ben. I’ve no more time to give you. Please. Just go.’
CHAPTER TEN
BEN WATCHED AS Thea skied down the last section of the run which led off the mountain and down to their private log cabin—practically to their door. His heart thudded as she drew to a stop next to his snowboard, lifted her ski-glasses up and offered him the same wary look she’d been sending his way for the last week.
And he only had himself to blame.
He was grateful that he’d managed to convince her to come here with him. Although he regretted the fact that his convincing had mainly taken the form of admitting that he’d arranged this time off with her colleagues weeks ago, as the honeymoon he and Thea had never had, and reminding her that if she still wanted to keep up the ‘happily married’ charade she was going to have to come on this so-called holiday after all.
Now he could only try to ensure that he used this as an opportunity to prove to Thea how sorry he really was.
‘Good run?’ He kept his tone deliberately upbeat.
‘Sure.’ Her mouth formed the right shape for a smile, but her eyes didn’t reflect the sentiment. ‘Yours?’
‘Yeah. Great.’
His gut twisted every time he thought of that night back at the house and how much he had inadvertently hurt her. Again. He’d had no idea that he would suddenly feel so self-conscious about his scars or he would never have initiated such intimacy with Thea in the first instance—however much he’d wanted to. He would never have knowingly put her in a position where she would feel made so completely vulnerable by his actions. But that was exactly what he’d managed to do.
Damn idiot.
He’d gone over and over events in his head, wondering what had prompted that moment of reservation from him, but there was nothing he could put his finger on. He kept picturing Thea’s face when he’d emerged from that car with the baby. She had been frightened, angry, relieved—he knew that. But he couldn’t shake the sense that there had been something else in her expression...something which didn’t fit, which he simply couldn’t identify.
He shook his head. Ridiculous. And it was wrong of him to try to offload his guilt and his problems onto Thea. He knew what that moment
at the crash site had been about. He understood the triggers and the way his mind had shut down. He hadn’t seen his surroundings. That burning car might have been an Army Land Rover, the injured passengers his wounded soldiers and the baby an Afghan child, for all he had known at that precise moment.
Thea had been right in her suspicions, so it was hardly any surprise that her face had been such a patchwork of emotions. He was reading too much into it.
