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‘I know we make you uncomfortable.’ Her voice sobered. ‘I’m sorry for that. I hope now it’ll be easier for you to come whenever you want. But I’m going to stop pressuring you about it. You only have to visit when you feel like it.’
She let his hand drop, a soft sigh escaping from her lips.
‘You didn’t pressure me, Mads,’ he murmured, using the childhood nickname for the first time in years. ‘And you didn’t make me uncomfortable. I did that all by myself. There’s something I should have told you. And I didn’t.’
The beatific smile on her lips turned to one of curiosity. ‘I don’t understand?’
And so he told her. At first he couldn’t look at her. So he stared out across the lawns towards the sea, the tumbling breakers matching the turmoil swirling under his ribcage as he forced himself to tell his sister the truth. The sordid details spoken in a tight monotone sounded all the more ugly, the more dirty, against the fresh salty scent of the sea air and the bold beautiful colours of Maddy’s garden.
She listened quietly, asking only the odd question. Her smile had faltered, flattened once his gaze finally met hers. But the disgust, the reproach he had expected to see in her face never materialised. Instead all he saw was a steady acceptance.
As he finished one lone teardrop fell, which she brushed away hastily.
Rising on tiptoe, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. ‘You shouldn’t have had to bear such a terrible burden all by yourself.’
‘I shouldn’t have kept it from you.’ It all seemed so obvious now. Why had he never seen what Ruby had spotted after only a day? ‘I wish I’d told you sooner.’
Maddy’s lips curved into a sweet, sunny smile. ‘So do I. But at least now you have.’ She looped her arm through his, fell into step beside him as they walked back to the house. ‘Tell me, did Ruby have anything to do with your decision to finally talk to me about it?’
He gave a stiff shrug, just the mention of Ruby’s name sending his emotions spinning again.
She was the most infuriating, most impulsive, most reckless woman he’d ever encountered. So how did she manage to turn him inside out with lust? Make his head feel as if it were exploding with frustration every time she challenged him? And at the same time cut right through the control that he relied upon for his sanity?
‘I’m not saying a word, on the grounds it might incriminate me.’
Or push me over the edge into insanity.
Maddy sent him a wistful smile. ‘Sometimes I think you’re too clever for your own good, Cal.’
He slung his arm over her slim frame, gave her an easy hug as she pressed against his side. ‘I try to be,’ he said. Although right at the minute, he’d never felt more stupid.
He’d done what Ruby suggested, told Maddy the truth at last, so why didn’t it feel like enough?
As he stepped into the living room with Maddy at his side, he spotted Ruby chatting with Rye in front of the big picture window. She glanced round, and the light from the setting sun caught the red highlights in her hair.
Her eyes met his and Cal felt the foolish bump under his breastbone and the way his heart scrambled into his throat.
Blast, he hadn’t sorted out a damn thing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘MADDY and Rye and Mia are wonderful,’ Ruby murmured, staring out of the Ferrari’s windscreen. The drystone walls and lush greenery of the Cornish countryside whipped past, the dramatic landscape only making the turmoil of conflicting emotions more acute. ‘Thanks for inviting me along. I had a great time.’
‘You and Maddy became fast friends,’ Cal commented. ‘I noticed she invited you to come down in October.’
His voice was gruff, laconic, and she wondered if she detected a note of censure in the tone. Was he concerned that she might be foolish enough to take Maddy up on the offer?
‘Yes, that was sweet of her. But I won’t be able to make it,’ she said, firmly. ‘The business is mental in October because of all the Halloween and fireworks parties we cater for.’
However much she might want to, she wasn’t going to visit Maddy again. She wasn’t an imbecile. Suppose Cal turned up too with a new woman on his arm? Talk about awkward.
Although somehow it didn’t feel like awkwardness or embarrassment making the leaden feeling in her stomach plummet to her toes when he remained silent.
‘I see,’ he said at last.
The ball of emotion in her throat grew. She swallowed it down, determined not to give in to the pointless weakness. What on earth had she expected? That he would sugge
st she come as his date?
