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He didn’t say anything. Not for a long time. Addie eventually had little choice but to look at him, to see if he’d even heard. To see what he was feeling.
And the scathing derision in his face left her breathless.
“Well then,” the words were drawled with ice-like detachment. “I suppose you had better come in.”
“Come in?”
“To discuss terms, Ava.”
*
She’d always been slim but now she was bordering on waif-like, her body slender beneath the barely-there dress she wore. Guy studied her as she sipped her water, the column of her throat moving with the action. There was a very fine tremble in her fingertips, which she was trying to conceal. But Guy saw everything.
Everything.
He hadn’t back then.
He’d seen only what she’d wanted him to see, but six months ago, he’d been stupid – at least where Ava was concerned. He’d bought her act, hook, line and sinker. He’d been the kind of fool he’d sworn he’d never be again. He’d let a woman lie to him. He’d eaten her lies up hungrily, one after the other.
What an idiot!
It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.
He eyed her dispassionately now, and gave her full marks for effort. Her act was exceptional. She looked every bit the scared, worried beauty – it was a part she was playing perfectly. She exuded the kind of fragility that she, perhaps, was hoping would soften him towards her. Appealing to the masculine need he’d once had to protect her at any cost.
But it had been a long time since he’d felt like that. Every day away from Ava had made him realise that their ‘love’ had just been a construct of his mind. An illusion.
“Well, Ava?” He enjoyed the look of pain that covered her face when he used her fake name. It served her right. She’d seen fit to feed him the lie – he was simply sticking to it. “You would like to borrow money from me?”
Her eyes skittered to him and then ran away again, like a kitten in a downpour. She was doing a terrific job of seeming uncomfortable, but Guy had witnessed her performances before. Knowledge of her prowess as an actress allowed him to remain completely unconcerned.
“I’d pay you back,” she said quietly, nodding her head slowly.
Sarcasm permeated his expression. “That is, generally, how a loan works.”
“It would take me … well, years,” she said slowly. “But I have an installment plan worked out.”
Guy’s brows shot up. “Years? How much do you intend to ask me for?”
The fine pulse at the base of her neck was racing, beneath his impassioned scrutiny. Frantic and fast. Hell, she must need an enormous sum. Curiosity kept him still. He could afford whatever she needed. God knew he had more than enough money to buy several small countries. But what could she possibly need the money for?
The lack of what he knew about her filled him with a sense of gladness. Gladness that he’d ended their relationship when he had. Gladness that he’d been strong and put her from his mind ever since.
“A lot,” she whispered, standing suddenly, her fine frame jack-knifing off the sofa so that she could walk towards the windows overlooking the street. She stared down, her long dark hair pulled over one shoulder exposing a swan-like neck.
“How much?” He prompted, studying the way her back moved as she breathed in and out.
She whispered something, and he didn’t catch it, because she was facing away and the words were issued so softly.
“I cannot hear you when you mumble,” he snapped, more caustically than he’d intended.
Addie spun around, and again, he had the strangest sense that she was being pursued by wolves. That some unknown danger was eating at her. “Fifty thousand pounds.”
Such a sum! He had been expecting hundreds of thousands at least, perhaps even a million! Fifty thousand pounds? Cristo! He frequently donated larger sums to the charities he supported.
“What do you need it for?” He asked with a shake of his head, enjoying the way panic spread over her features. She thought he was going to say ‘no’. And she was doing a very good imitation of someone who was desperately afraid.
She didn’t answer his question. There was a guarded secrecy in her features as she said, “I’d pay back every penny.”
