AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s what you meant,” she murmured softly. “When you said that you’d learned your lesson about women like me a long time ago? You meant that I remind you of her? That you see us as the same kind of woman?”
His nostrils flared with the force of his breathing. He didn’t answer, but the silence only increased Addie’s urgency. “I’m not Maria,” she said emphatically, pulling up to standing. “I didn’t lie to you because I wanted to. I wasn’t using you. I fell in love with you.”
Guy stared at her, not inviting her to continue, but Addie’s expression was rich with determination. She lifted her hands to his chest, her fingers splayed, his heart beating right into her tips, fueling her blood. She needed to tell him everything; yes, even about her mother. Even when she’d sworn she’d never reveal her mother’s secret.
“The night I met you…” She sucked in a breath. “It was the tenth anniversary of … of an awful time in my life. My dad and brother were killed in a car accident.” His head careened around, facing her.
At least he was listening. Why hadn’t she done this sooner?
Because it hurt.
A physical ache was pounding in her chest at recounting a story she hadn’t discussed with anyone, ever. “It was awful. It destroyed my family. You might think it would get easier, with each year that passes, but it doesn’t. It’s so much harder. I forget little things about them, things that were so elemental, and sometimes, I can’t even see my brother’s face.” A single tear rolled down her cheek.
“Cherie, my cousin, she understands. We spent so much time together, back then, she was with me through all of it. She suggested we go out that night, that we dress up and pretend to be other people. Just for one night, to pretend that this grief doesn’t fill us. I was never meant to meet you. I was never meant to meet anyone that I would know beyond that party. It was just a way to forget, for one lousy night.”
Surprise was a mild way of describing how he felt. She’d spoken of her father and brother often, but always, he realized now, in the past tense. As people who once were. Sympathy was threatening to overtake him, but he wouldn’t let it. If true, he would pity her immensely, but what if it were just another lie, an invention to play on his emotions?
“But we met and I fell in love with you that night, Guy. That same night. The more I loved you, the harder it was to reconcile who you thought I was with the truth and I couldn’t …I couldn’t find a way to tell you. I’m so sorry that I didn’t find a way. But you have to believe me. This was never a planned deceit. I had no ulterior motive. I simply… I fell in love with you. You have to believe that what we had was real.”
He stared down at her beautiful face, pinched with intensity, and what was warm in him iced over. The problem was, he wanted to believe her, but he couldn’t. He’d never be that stupid again, and she had too many reasons to lie.
“I don’t want to get drawn into a conversation about the past. The relationship we had then was a fiction. It’s not realistic to think we can ever be that to one another again. I’m offering you a specific type of relationship. Whether you accept it or not is your decision.”
*
Addie was numb. Objectively the night was perfect – utterly sublime – but she was incapable of feeling anything beyond the pain that was spreading through her body with a singular determination, obliterating hopefulness, optimism and devotion, almost, in one fell swoop.
She’d been so certain that if she told him the truth, he would understand. That if she could find the right words at the right time, he would know that she was the same person he’d fallen in love with. That she’d lied out of self-preservation rather than any nefarious motivation. That he could trust her.
She’d thought it would be enough.
And it hadn’t been.
The relationship we had then was a fiction. It’s not realistic to think we can ever be that to one another again.
Guy laughed at something the man – what was his name? – had said, and Addie pushed a smile to her face belatedly. Her feet hurt from dancing, but it was nothing to the pain in her cheeks from stretching this false grin across her face; nothing compared to the throbbing ache in her heart.
“Are you coming?” The man turned his smiling face to Addie, who had no idea what he was talking about.
But Guy came to her rescue. “Ava may have to be back in London for work. We are still assessing our schedule,” Guy said, smoothly insinuating their partnership and togetherness, sliding a hand around her waist as if to emphasise his point.
>
His touch hurt.
It hurt because here, surrounded by others, he acted as though he adored her. As though she were irreplaceable to him. And she knew how patently untrue it was.
It was all pretend.
So far as Guy was concerned, he was giving her a taste of her own medicine. Is this what he’d thought? That she’d been faking it like this? That she left him and assumed a different role?
She supposed she did. Her mother required so much of her care, and caused her so much worry, that Addie was harried and exhausted as soon as she left Guy’s company. With him, she was truly happy.
Or, she had been back then.
“Acting, huh?” The man grinned. “That must be challenging.”
“Ava’s a natural,” Guy said, as he had to Santiago, and it sent resentment skittling through Ava’s nervous system.
