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But I couldn’t think about that night. That way only lay heartache, and it wasn’t the lesson I wanted to learn from my relationship with him.
I was going to take some of the ice he gave to other people and place it in my own heart, so I’d never be so stupid again as to fall in love with a man I could never have.
Constantine’s black gaze raked the ballroom as if he was looking for something, or someone, and I wanted to shrink back behind my column, to stay safe out of his sight. Except another part of me, a harder part, wanted to show him that he hadn’t destroyed me with the harsh words he’d said to me that night. That I was stronger than he thought.
That I hated him with every part of me.
So I stood my ground, and lifted my chin, and waited for the Sword of Damocles to fall.
And it did.
His gaze found me in the crowd, as I knew it would, and all the breath left my body. But I didn’t go cold—I never went cold when Constantine looked at me—I went hot, like a fire blazing high.
He was already statue-still and his expression betrayed nothing. I’d always been able to read him, and yet tonight I had no idea what he was thinking.
His attention raked over me and for a moment or two I trembled. With heat. With desire. With desperate hunger.
Then he looked away, dismissing me as if I was dirt he’d wiped off his shoe.
Tears of rage prickled behind my eyes. Rage at him and at myself for coming here, for thinking I could bear one last glimpse of him without my heart breaking all over again.
I was stupid. I was so stupid.
Blinking fiercely, I fought back my tears and turned away.
I’d had my last glimpse. I’d said goodbye. Now it was time to leave, and the sooner I got out of here the better.
I threaded my way through the crowd to the closest door and stepped out into the relative quiet of the white marble hall.
I was starting to feel a bit sick, since I’d skipped dinner, and the emotion clogging my throat didn’t help. So I was distracted, too wound up in raging at Constantine, to notice a man in a black uniform suddenly appear at the end of the corridor.
‘Miss Grey?’ he asked politely as I approached.
I recognised him. He was one of Constantine’s security staff. ‘Yes?’
‘If you would follow me, please? Mr Silvera has instructed that you are to wait for him in the small study.’
I blinked in surprise. Constantine wanted to talk to me? Why? What could he possibly want to say to me that he hadn’t said that night in the garden? Not that I wanted to hear him say anything at all. In fact, the very last thing in the world I wanted to do was to talk to him.
‘I’m sorry.’ I tried to be polite, even though I felt anything but. ‘I have a plane to catch. Please tell Mr Silvera that he—’
‘I’m afraid Mr Silvera insists.’ The man gave me an apologetic look. ‘Just following orders, miss.’
Shock rippled through me. Constantine wasinsisting? But...why? Hadn’t he said everything he needed to three months ago? Things such as, ‘No, I don’t love you. What a preposterous idea’. And, ‘Did your mother put you up to this?’. And, ‘If you think I’m going to marry you, you’re sadly mistaken. You have no money and have no power. You have nothing I want. Your looks might be passable, and you might be good in bed, but sex is not a basis for marriage.’ And, ‘This was a mistake. And it willneverhappen again.’
Perhaps he’d forgotten to say a few things. Perhaps he hadn’t finished tearing my heart to shreds and now he wanted to finish the job.
I didn’t want to give him that opportunity, but the way his security man was standing made it obvious that no wasn’t going to be an acceptable answer. Which left me with either an undignified struggle or going willingly.
Well, didn’t you want him to know how much you hated him? This could be the perfect opportunity.
That was true. The night of his engagement party, after I’d fled the garden, weeping like the stupid child I was, and finally got back home, I’d lain awake, my heart in ruins, allowing fury to fill me. Thinking of all the things I wanted to say to him. Things that would destroy him the way he’d destroyed me.
I’d loved him for so long—since I’d been sixteen—and the way he’d cut me off after I’d moved to London had hurt. And after the passion in the grass, where he’d fallen on me like a starving man falls on a feast, I’d thought that finally,finally,he was mine, and the past four years of silence had been an aberration. I hadn’t expected his complete and utter rejection. It had come completely out of the blue.
Naive of me. I hadn’t even realised it was his engagement party. I’d gone because my mother had told me that Constantine was having a party. He’d wanted me to come and my invitation must have got lost in my inbox. I’d arrived late, not knowing what the occasion was, and gone straight to find him. He’d been out in the garden, alone, and...
Yes, I’d been stupid, and that night he’d shattered me. I’d been too broken to say a word. I’d turned around and run away from him instead.
