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“Si?”
“Unless it is a fresh beginning for us. A new beginning. If you could put the past behind us and try again. Let me show you that I’m the same woman you fell in love with in London. No secrets, no lies.”
Guy recoiled visibly. “That’s not the deal.”
“Why not? Why can’t it be?”
“Because, Ava! I don’t damned well want that. Don’t you understand? How many times and in how many ways do I have to tell you that I don’t want you like that? My trust, once lost, is gone. And I will never trust you, I will never like you, I will never want you anywhere but my bed.” He lifted a hand to her waist and jerked her against him, her eyes flying wide at the sudden and unexpected contact. “But I do want you there. And I’ll go to the ends of the earth to have you there.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“LEAVING ALREADY, DARLINGS?” Luciana’s voice arrested them on the edges of the party. Addie hadn’t seen Guy for over two hours, since he’d stalked away from her and the incredible wall of jasmine. She had no idea how he’d spent the party. She’d milled around, making idle chit chat when absolutely necessary, otherwise avoiding people as though she were a host for a modern form of the plague.
“It’s two in the morning,” Guy murmured, casting a glance at his wristwatch before dropping his hand and capturing Addie’s, intertwining their fingers. “Ava is tired.”
Luciana shifted her attention to the woman she believed her son to be madly in love with.
I will never want you anywhere but my bed.
“Is it two already?” Luciana laughed. “Goodness, I have been having such a marvelous time, I didn’t realise!”
“Everything was beautiful,” Addie supplied, feeling that she ought to at least thank Luciana for including her.
“All the more so because you were here,” Luciana said with warmth. “You must come and spend a weekend at the vineyard.”
The invitation unfurled in Addie with a sense of awkwardness. Lying to these people, people she really liked, hurt. “We’ll organize something,” Guy said casually, noncommittally. “Good night, mother.”
“Good night, darlings,” Luciana waved a hand in the air.
Several golf carts were lined up to convey guests to their accommodations. Guy waited near the first, holding the door open, his jaw clenched.
Addie slipped into it, her stomach swooping, disbelief still pulling at her. This couldn’t be the end.
It didn’t have to be, her heart argued. If she could accept his offer, then she could still see him.
And be treated like this? By a man she loved?
It would destroy her.
Pride stole through her, and she jutted her chin out defiantly, her eyes straight ahead. She had to be strong, for just a little while longer.
They drove in silence, and Addie was too heart-sore to notice the beautiful night they were wrapped up in. The crispness of the inky sky, sparkling with diamond-dust stars, the warmth of the evening and the sound of crashing waves. The smell of the island, citrus and jasmine and sand and salt.
She didn’t notice any of it.
The golf cart stopped; the moon was high overhead, streaking the yacht in pale, luminescence.
They didn’t speak the whole way to the yacht, but once on-board, Guy turned to face Addie. Was she imagining a weariness in the set of his features?
Probably.
This man was unbreakable.
He was heartless and ruthless, and yet he had her heart.
They say fortune favours the brave, but Addie’s ability to be brave was running out. She reached for Guy with the last remaining strand of her courage, her fingers curling around his wrist, pulling him to face her.
“We need to talk about this, Guy.”
