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“What made you get into it?”
Addie cleared her throat. “My father used to read me plays,” she said, knowing she didn’t imagine the way Guy’s fingers paused in their gentle stroking of her waist. “Never books. He would do the voices, and I got used to them,” she smiled at the memory – her first genuine smile all night. “As soon as I could read, I took over some of the roles, and eventually learned them by heart. I would always perform them… for my brother, my mum, my teacher, my teddies.” She shook her head, but the smile was dying on her lips. “I got a scholarship at the Bristol Old Vic.”
She didn’t add that she hadn’t been able to take it up. That she’d discovered her mother’s gambling addiction and the truly dire state of their finances right when she’d been poised to step out into the world on her own for the first time.
“Nothing makes me happier than performing,” she said.
“Truer words were never spoken,” Guy murmured, and only Addie caught the undercurrent of cynicism in his words.
“Excuse me,” emotions were tumbling through her. She needed space. “I’m going to get a glass of water.”
She didn’t really need to go far. Waiters were milling around with trays of all sorts of drinks, but Addie just wanted to get away. She grabbed the first glass she passed and cradled it in her hands as she weaved through the party. Fairy lights were strung overhead, and in the centre of the dance floor was an ice sculpture of Santiago and a beautiful woman – it must have been his late wife, Rafaela.
Addie flicked a glance at it as she passed, but the need for solitude triumphed curiosity. She emerged at the edge of the party and found solace in the same space Guy and Maria had shared their conversation earlier.
She stood with her back to the rambling jasmine, staring out at the sea, and finally, she stopped fighting the tears that were stinging her eyes. The air was heavy with salt and sadness; she breathed them both in, but already her mind was turning to the reality of the decisions before her.
Could she really leave Guillem? Leave this island knowing she would never see him again? Was there anything else she could do to get through to him? To show him that she wasn’t what he thought?
He was fighting her so hard, pushing her away at every opportunity, but was that because he was scared of being hurt?
Guy, scared?
She almost laughed at the absurdity of that.
And yet, the parallels between herself and Maria shook her to the core. Oh, they were different, too, but Guy had loved them both, and discovering that they’d lied to him had hurt. Was she being punished for Maria’s wrongs?
“Hiding from me, querida?” His voice was smooth as he approached her from behind. Addie blinked and lifted a hand to dab at her tears before turning to face him. She didn’t bother trying to smile.
He took in her appearance, and if anything, his expression hardened.
“I’m not hiding.”
He moved closer then, and she inhaled his masculine fragrance, the hint of citrus and pine, and her lips tingled with the memories of that. The first night they’d met.
“Have you missed me? These last six months, I mean.” She looked up at him, her gaze roaming his autocratic profile, trying to discern the emotions in there that she needed to see.
There were none.
“No.”
A bullet. A wounding, scalping bullet. It landed with a thud in her heart.
“I missed the idea of what I thought you were,” he said after a small pause. “I regretted letting sex distract me. There were signs, all the way along, that you weren’t what you pretended, but I was too captivated to care. I’m ashamed of that.”
“I was everything you thought I was.”
His eyes glinted in his handsome face, and the moon shimmered across them, casting his features in angular relief. He seemed to be weighing his words carefully, but when he spoke, he changed the subject. “Have you thought about my proposition?”
Addie tilted her face to his, uncertainty flooding her. “Yes.”
“Yes?” He lifted one brow so Addie shook her head quickly.
“I mean, yes, I’ve thought about it, and no, I still can’t do it.”
A muscle throbbed in his jaw, steady and slow, like his heart.
“Unless,” she whispered, the word tremulous.
