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‘I’ve never wanted anyone until now!’ She shouted it, and continued to shout. ‘My fiancé kept trying and I loathed it. I loathed every touch and every kiss and every attempt—’ Her chest shuddered as she took in ragged gulps of air.
‘Everyattempt?’ Rafe checked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He tried—several times—but I fought him off.’
There—she had said it and the sky had not fallen. She had told someone. In fact she had admitted to this man whom she had known only a few days, something she had never revealed to her family or even her dearest friend.
Perhaps it was because she knew Rafe was leaving, she pondered briefly.
‘I toldhimthat I was saving myself for marriage; it was the only way I could keep him back. So please don’t assume you know my reasons for waiting.’
‘Did he hurt you?’ Rafe was aware of the anger in his own voice and fought to check it, for his anger was not aimed at her. Then he answered his own question. ‘Of course he did.’
‘No,’ she countered. ‘Not really.’ For even all these years later there was no neat category for what had taken place on those long-ago nights, and she didn’t want to discuss it. ‘You are not a counsellor—and I came here to move on, not to look back.’
She looked down to his hand, still closed around her wrist, but looser now.
‘I’ll say goodnight,’ she said.
Yet Rafe could not leave things there. He let go of her wrist, and as he watched Antonietta gather her things there were two people that Rafe loathed right now.
The man who had attempted to force her.
And the man who had tonight denied her.
‘Antonietta...’ He could see her confusion, could still feel the hum of angry words that hung in the air, and he did not want her leaving like this. ‘I would never have brought you back here had I known you were a virgin.’
‘We’ve already established that,’ she clipped.
‘Listen to me!’ he snapped back.
And she liked it that he snapped. She liked his impatience, and the fact that he did not suddenly treat her like fragile glass, that her past did not change them.
‘I am trying to explain...’
‘You don’t want me,’ Antonietta said. ‘I think you have made that exceptionally clear.’
‘OfcourseI want you!’
He sounded cross, and yet his tone did not trouble her.
It felt like a row. Yet it did not unnerve her.
For when she looked, when she met his navy eyes, there was desire rather than ire blazing in his eyes.
And it almost floored her.
‘Antonietta.’
He took a breath and it seemed to her as if he was preparing her for bad news.
‘Iwillbe leaving tomorrow.’
Was that it? The bad news? She knew that already.
‘Rafe...’
She did not know how best to put it that she was not terrified of his leaving. She was terrified of being sent away!
