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He groans and turns away. ‘Go back to sleep, Emmie. It’ll be a few hours before they come looking for us.’
‘I don’t want to sleep. I want you—’
‘To ruin your life, I know. But one of us has to stop while we’re ahead of the game.’
‘Come on, Jago. Please don’t be like this. You just said you loved me.’
He turns to look at me with those soulful eyes that bear all of the world’s sorrows and my heart turns in my chest as he groans and pulls me to him for what feels like a last searing kiss. I clutch at him, not wanting to ever let go, but he gently takes my wrists and pushes me from him again, shaking his head sadly.
‘Get away from me while you still can, Emmie. I’ve told you before – I’ll only end up hurting you.’
‘You won’t.’
‘Listen to me,’ he says softly, his usual scowling eyebrows now raised in a plea as he gently takes my hands in his, caressing my fingers. ‘You think you know me, but I really am bad news, Emmie. Trust me on this.’
‘No, Jago. I know you. You act all hard and big, but you couldn’t hurt a fly if you wanted to.’
‘Go back to bed, Emmie, and dream your dreams of a fairy-tale love. Because I can’t love you the way you want me to. I’m broken and I can’t be fixed.’
‘So just like that, we’re done?’
‘Emmie,’ he moans, his hands on both sides of my face. ‘You think that I don’twantto be with you?’
‘I-I don’t know…’ I falter. ‘You’re never the same from one day to another. I never know where you stand.’
‘There’s no way that it’s ever going to work between you and me.’
‘Why?’
‘Look at us! You’re magnificent. Luminous. Respected. While I’m considered to be dodgy at the best of times.’
‘But that’s just it. People consider you like that because you never give them the chance to get to know the real you.’
‘And you think you know the real me?’
I swallow. ‘Yes. Or at least some of you.’
He shakes his head as his eyes hold mine. ‘Oh, to be the man you think I am – the man you so desperately want me to be… You poor, poor girl. You have no idea. You have no idea what I’ve done. What I’m capable of.’
‘Then why don’t you tell me?’
He groans. ‘Let it go, Emmie, for your own sake.’
‘My sake?’
‘I’m trying to protect you.’
‘I’m not a child, Jago. I don’t need protecting.’
‘Sure you do. Every woman does. You might be all independent and stuff, and I respect and admire a strong woman. But look at you – a stiff wind could knock you over. This world is full of nutters who would happily harm someone smaller. And I will hurt you. I’m like the scorpion on the frog’s back. It’s my nature to kill, however good my intentions may be. That’s me – an animal.’
And so, cold and refused, I return to bed, stifling my sobs in the pillows as he sits by the fire, still and silent. How could he refuse me right after telling me he loves me? On what planet does any of this make sense?
Only, in a way, his own prophecy has come true. He did hurt me. Like no one else ever has. When had I given him this power?
*
The morning after, Christmas morning, is worse than I’d feared. Rising from the profundity of a restless night, I hear the distant sound of a motorboat, then a whistle with a response whistle back. I sit up, still confused, but it doesn’t take me long to return to reality. I’ve slept the last leg of the night by myself, my heart stone cold and devoid of the warmth that Jago’s presence gave me.
