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“Why not?”
He blinked, shaking his head. “Never mind. You can say whatever you want. Tell me how you feel. How I made you feel. I’ll listen.”
She opened her mouth and then clamped it shut again. “There’s no point. It’s in the past. If we’re going to work together then we should just leave it there.”
His eyes widened.
“Is that what you want?”
She turned away from him, her blood pounding through her veins. Was it? Could she work with this man, knowing she’d always love him? Knowing what they’d shared?
“I don’t know.”
Silence. A heavy, throbbing silence filled with their history.
“Can I tell you what I want?”
She bit down on her lip, tears sparkling in her lashes. “Okay.” Her voice wobbled.
“I would like to date you.”
She fidgeted her fingers in front of her, not turning around to look at him.
“I would like to date you,” he repeated. “And I would like you to move in with me, just as soon as you’re ready. I would like you to spend every night for the rest of your life with me. I would like to see you smile and to know you’re smiling because of how happy I make you.”
Everything felt strange. Was she dreaming?
“What happened to ‘you’ll never commit to anyone’?”
“You happened, Bronte, and you made me see what a fool I’ve been. I have been so scared of hurting you I didn’t realise that forcing us to live without each other is the worst kind of pain there is.”
He moved towards her; she heard his clothes rustling and felt the air change as he got close. “I cannot promise I won’t hurt you again, or that you won’t hurt me. That’s not realistic. But I can promise I will fight for you, and us, with my dying breath. I can promise I will love you, all my life.”
She turned to face him, slowly. No, she
wasn’t dreaming. He was right in front of her, and if she had any doubts about the sincerity of what he was saying, his expression would have convinced her. She felt the truth beaming from him.
“I love you,” he said quietly. “I think I fell in love with you in that tiny country pub when you got drunk on cocktails.”
She laughed unevenly. “Or when I stripped down for you afterwards?”
“No,” he shook his head, moving closer. “It was when you got all rambling and talkative and I found myself fascinated by every thought you expressed. I should have known then that I was in trouble.”
“You kept pushing me away,” she tried to cling to common sense as a life raft in the fast moving waters of hope. “You said it was just sex.”
“I told you – I lied.”
She shook her head. “I think you believed it on that day.”
“I thought I was being kind, pushing you away. I thought it would enable you to get on with your life. I didn’t want to be some guy who’d done the wrong thing by you.”
“Instead you were just some guy who broke my heart.”
“And I will always be sorry for that.” He moved closer. “But something you said to me, at Athlestone Park, has kept running through my mind.”
“What?”
“You said sometimes life takes us down roads we don’t expect.” His eyes held hers. “I never expected to meet anyone like you. I sure as hell didn’t expect an altruistic offer to turn into this. I went away with you because you were sad and I couldn’t bear to see that. I went away with you because you had a problem and I could help. But I stayed there with you, I slept with you, because I fell in love with every damned thing about you.”
