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“Yes.” He muttered a string of expletives, and when his eyes found hers, they were tormented. “So you’ll forgive me, Katie, if I don’t want to relive that scene to satisfy some bored curiosity you’ve got.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. She squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in a deep breath. “I didn’t know. I’m…sorry.”
“I know you’re a curious person, but when someone says they don’t want to talk about it, you should respect that.”
That cut her to the quick. “Like you, I suppose?”
“Yes, like me!” He thought of all the questions he had about her, and had resisted asking.
“That’s bull!” She stepped out of the bath, accidentally knocking the tray he’d assembled as she did so. She froze as the sandwiches dropped to the tiled floor, spreading out into a sloppy mess. It reminded her of the first night they’d met, and despite her fury, she couldn’t help but feel there was an appropriate ‘full circleness’ to it all.
“Oh?”
She grabbed a towel from behind the door and rubbed her body dry quickly. “Yes! If it hadn’t been for your nosy curiosity, we would never have played truth or dare that first night. I let you know things about me that I haven’t shared…”
“Like what!” He interrupted explosively. “That you’ve got a son? That you had sex with some guy at twenty two who turned out to be a bit of a prick? Hardly worthy of an Oprah episode.”
His disdain made her heart flip over painfully. “I’m sorry you don’t think my life is interesting enough for you.”
“I don’t think your life is as traumatic as you like to think.”
Her laugh lacked humor. “I don’t like to think my life is traumatic. You don’t know me at all.”
“And you don’t know me at all. God, Katie. We’ve had a great week. Great sex. That doesn’t give you a right to lecture me on grief. Nor to want to know everything about me!”
She shot him a fulminating stare, fixing the towel around the top of her breasts and securing it with fingers that shook. “You couldn’t be more wrong. I don’t want to know everything about you. I don’t want to know you at all.” And she slammed the bathroom door behind her for good measure.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She half expected him to follow her. To come to her bedroom and apologize for his horrible remarks. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to, or if she’d throw a lamp at him if he even tried to touch her. She’d felt a connection with him that went beyond anything in her experience, and yet he seemed to think they were nothing but bed-partners.
How wrong had she been!
Well, her track record was hardly anything to write home about when it came to choosing men who were worth loving. Still. She was sure David had been different.
She lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, frozen to the bone in just a towel, but not caring. She lay there, listening into the dark. She heard him exit the bath, only moments after her. Then heard his footsteps in the creaky hall, only they were going the wrong direction. They were going to his room, and not hers. With a groan, she buried her head into her pillow and tried to forget that, only meters away, the man she thought she loved was sleeping. Tried to forget that tomorrow would be the last time they ever saw each other.
Of course, she didn’t sleep. How could she? She was torn between going to him and asking him just what the hell had got into him, and staying as far away as possible.
His revelation about his best friend was shocking. It explained a lot about the darkness she had felt in him from the start, and she wanted to know more. But not if it earned he
r the label of being nosy! Of all the hurtful, stupid remarks, that had to be one of the worst. She pressed down, hard, on her instinct to comfort him. He’d shown her how little he wanted sympathy. He didn’t even want to talk about it. She sobbed into the quiet, dark room, and pressed her hand against her mouth to stifle the sound of sadness.
Outside her room, Marcus stood, frozen. The sound of her crying made him ache, physically. He should never have lost his temper with her. She was perhaps the sweetest person on earth, and while he resented anyone asking him about what happened in Iraq, he knew that had nothing to do with why he’d exploded. It was because he wanted to talk to her. To tell her everything. Stuff he’d never even shared with his brother, he wanted to tell this woman. He wanted her to make him better.
And he couldn’t.
He was trapped in his own lie.
How could he tell her about Iraq, and Bryan, without telling her everything?
He shook his head. This is just how it had to be. He walked stealthily down the hallway and back to his own room, knowing that he could never see her again, no matter how much he wanted to.
* * *
The lounge looked as it always had. Sometime after their fight and now, David had apparently come back downstairs to extinguish the candles and remove them. She should be grateful for small mercies. That at least the visible signs of his romantic gesture had been removed. If only the ache in her heart were so easy to deal with.
Outside, a wild storm was brewing. She thought of Maxie, at his friend’s house, and hoped he’d slept okay in the storm. She hadn’t had any calls from him. The prickle of maternal fear that never went away when separated from a child ran across her neck now, but she ignored it. He was in good hands. She was only worried because they were two peas in a pod. And so would they always be.
