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He carried it through the lounge and handed it to her. And it was there. The spark of voltage that they alone seemed able to generate.
“Thank you,” she murmured, her green eyes awash with emotion when they briefly linked with his.
“Of course.” He crouched down in front of her. He had to be close. He had to be near her.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said finally, when she simply cradled the tea and stared straight ahead.
“I don’t know why I am.” Her response was soft, accompanied by a shrug of her shoulders.
Caradoc frowned. She was shivering now. He reached for one of the ridiculous mohair throws his designer had furnished the apartment with and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“Actually,” she said, dragging her eyes back to his with some effort. “I do. I have to ask you some questions.”
“Good. Questions are good.” Questions meant that she was going to listen to him, finally. That she was going to, perhaps, forgive him for being the most arrogant arsehole on the face of the earth. “Ask me anything you want, baby.”
Her tummy hurt. Anything?
“Have you slept with anyone else? Since me?”
Of course it had to be that first. “No.” He assured her, putting a hand on her knee. “But … I wanted to.”
She closed her eyes and expelled a soft breath.
“I wanted to screw every woman I could find to get you out of my mind. God, Finn, when you left … I didn’t know how to feel. I was so angry. With you. With myself. I was furious. I thought that I could prove to myself that you were just another woman. That you weren’t special to me.” He reached up and cupped her cheek gently. “But then I discovered the idea of being with anyone else was anathema to me. I wanted only you.”
Relief was a full-blown force in her body. “And Marlena?”
“Is a friend. We were lovers once. A long time ago. She’s completely besotted with a German Formula One driver. And even if she weren’t, she’s still just a friend.”
Finn believed him. It was strange, but for all his faults, she didn’t believe Caradoc capable of lying. He had no reason to.
“But you brought her to that thing. You must have known I’d be there. You knew about Anton …”
“Yes.” His face flashed with emotion. “I knew.”
“Did you bring her to hurt me? To make me jealous?”
His smile was lopsided. “No.” He took the tea from her fingers and placed it on the coffee table, then wrapped his hands around hers. “This is going to sound ridiculous. But she was worried about me.”
Finn balked. “Worried? About you?” Was he sick? Was something wrong? Her chest compressed painfully. “Why?”
“Because she’d never seen me like this. Like I was after you left. You broke my heart, and Marlena didn’t want me getting messed up again.”
“I broke your heart?” Finn repeated disbelievingly. “You’re kidding me right?”
“Not at all,” he assured her. “Why would you find that so hard to understand?”
“You don’t have a heart. You don’t believe in love, remember? And I’m the one … I’m the one who was heartbroken. You could have stopped me from leaving. You could have come after me sooner. You could have told me that it wasn’t just about sex for you.”
“I know,” he knelt up, so that his face was level with hers. “But I didn’t see that then. I took you for granted because I couldn’t imagine a life without you in it. I knew I couldn’t lose you. And then, that night … you gave me an ultimatum and I panicked. I wanted so badly to say whatever you needed to hear to make you stay, but I was furious too. How could you think of leaving me? Didn’t you know that would destroy me? Didn’t you care? There you were talking about love, and yet you didn’t care enough to stay with me. Yes, Finn, I was ruined when you walked out of my life.”
Her lip trembled with tears that she didn’t want to allow. “I left out of self-preservation.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt you.”
She stood up angrily, moving away from him. “You hurt me every day. Every day we were together and you didn’t say what I needed to hear.”
“That I loved you?” He barked in frustration.
