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‘But you’re not outside it. You’re Lady Faith.’ He spat out the last two words. ‘And I’ve learned a lot about what that means in the last three weeks.’
‘Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,’ she said, as if it were a joke. As if it were even the slightest bit funny.
He turned to face her. He needed to see her reacting to this one. ‘Maybe not. But a picture is worth a thousand words, don’t they say?’
There. A tremor of something, under the bravado. But still, she tried to excuse herself. ‘Like the picture of us?’
‘We can’t deny what happened just before it, however much we might want to,’ he said. ‘And it seems like it wasn’t your first time in that particular situation.’
That was it. That was the line that got to her. Her whole body, usually so kinetic and full of energy, stopped cold. The only time he’d ever seen her so still was in his hotel room, just before she ran.
Dominic half hoped she might just run again. But she didn’t.
* * *
‘You mean Jared,’ Faith said, proud that she could even find her voice. Did he truly think this was the same? That she had some habit of causing scandals for guys and then skipping town?
She’d hoped he knew her better than that. Apparently her real name wasn’t the only thing he hadn’t realised.
‘I heard the poor guy left his wife and kids for you, before you ran. Guess I should be grateful that all I had to lose was my reputation.’
‘Funny. I always thought that was all you cared about anyway. If it wasn’t, maybe you’d have the wife and kids already and would never have to have worried about me at all.’ Ouch, that hurt. It hurt her, and she was the one saying it. But if he honestly believed everything they printed about her...well, a little insult was nothing, surely.
And Dominic wouldn’t let her see, even if it did sting. His expression was back to that robot look of the early days, the one that didn’t let anything show. The one that had almost convinced her that he wasn’t interested in her, didn’t want her the way she wanted him.
But she knew better now. She knew him, even if he’d never really known her.
He drew back, leaning away from her against the railings. He wasn’t going to rise to the bait. Of course not. As much as she’d love a knock-down drag-out fight with the guy, just to get it all out, to clear the air, maybe even let them start afresh...Dominic would never let go like that. And he’d certainly never do it where they had an audience. Through it all, he’d kept his voice low, his hands clenched at his sides or holding the railings. No outward sign of the fury burning in him.
Well, the crowd behind the glass might not be able to tell, but Faith knew. She knew he was every bit as angry as she was. And she knew he’d never let himself show it.
‘So. What are your plans now? Will you stay at Fowlmere as the happy heiress?’
‘You mean, will we be required to make polite conversation at every social function until the end of time?’ Faith shook her head. ‘Thankfully for both of us, no. Dad needs a little help setting up a new project, something to get the estate running properly again, and then I’ll be on my way. Fowlmere is only ever a temporary stop for me.’
‘You’ll be running away again, then. Of course.’
Faith bristled at that. ‘I’m not running from anything. I’m running to something new. My new life. A life where I don’t have to answer to people like you.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘People like me?’
‘Yes, people like you. And them!’ Faith swept an arm out to encompass their audience, just a window pane away. He was the only one on that balcony who cared if they knew they were talking about them. ‘All you care about is what other people think about you, what they say. Your precious reputation.’
‘What’s left of it now you’re done with it,’ Dominic muttered and grabbed her arm, trying to keep her calm, undemonstrative. Docile.
Ha!
Faith wrenched her arm away. ‘Why does it matter to you so much what people think? So your mother left. That’s her story, not yours! So you slept with a scandalous runaway heiress. Who cares? And what makes it any of their business anyway?’
‘You cared,’ he pointed out. ‘Or are you trying to tell me that when you ran away the first time it wasn’t because of what people were saying about you and Hawkes?’ He shook his head. ‘All that time I wasted trying to figure out what dreadful secret had made you leave Italy, when all the time I should have been trying to find out why you left Britain in the first place.’
