AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty
As soon as she uttered the words, she wanted to snatch them back. Being vulnerable and open sucked.
Ian winced. “I am so very sorry, Bella.”
“Why did you do it?” she asked steadily. “Why did you leave without saying good-bye?” It was a question she had wrestled with during weeks of sleepless nights.
He took a sip of his wine, almost casually, but the fingers of his left hand drummed restlessly on the tablecloth. “That morning at breakfast when you said the university had offered you a job, it stunned me. I couldn’t believe you hadn’t told me, but then I realized it was something you would share with family first. Even so, what you said sent me into a tailspin.”
“Why, Ian?”
“I had started having feelings for you, but I was so damn confused about what I wanted. I was terrified that I had inherited the worst from both of my parents…my mother’s instability and my father’s inability to connect with people he loved.”
“You’ve never struck me as unstable. Far from it.”
He grimaced. “I notice that you didn’t discount the second part.”
“Well,” she said, trying to be transparent about her feelings, “I honestly didn’t know how to read you. I was sure you enjoyed the sex, but men are wired that way. I hadn’t a clue if you thought of me as anything other than a relatively new friend with benefits.”
Reaching across the table, he took her right hand in both of his, and rubbed the back of it with two thumbs. “I didn’t know what to think, Arabella Margaret. It was like my life had been the Wizard of Oz in black and white, and then you came, and my world burst into color.”
“Oh, Ian.” No one had ever said such a thing to her. She could see in his eyes that he meant it. “I have something to tell you, too,” she said. “The day you left—while I was out exploring—I had made the decision to tell you I was in love with you. I had no clue what would happen after that, but I held out hope that you would be glad to hear it.”
He released her hand and sat back in his chair, his expression tormented. “Good God, Bella. I don’t know what to say.”
She shrugged. “It’s just as well I hadn’t already said it. That way I could go home and pretend you and I never happened.”
“I loved you, too,” he said slowly. “But I didn’t know I loved you. Do you even believe me when I say that?”
Loved. Past tense. That hurt. “Of course I believe you. What I don’t get is why you had to leave. I wasn’t trying to squeeze a commitment out of you. Surely you knew that.”
“I never thought it for a minute. I was too busy running from reporters and trying to decide why the prospect of going back to my normal life in London was so unappealing. When you told us at breakfast that morning the university had offered you a job, I was shocked. I could hear in your voice that you planned to accept. I panicked.”
“But why?”
“I had nothing to offer you. I might be smart, but I had no guarantee that I wouldn’t be like my father and forget to pay attention to you.”
“So you were afraid I would eventually run away and become a drug addict and spiral into self-destruction?”
The conversation halted when their food appeared. Bella had never felt less like eating, but she picked at her mashed potatoes.
Ian thanked the waiter and sent him on his way. His jaw squared like it did when he was displeased. “When you say it that way, it sounds ridiculous.”
“If the shoe fits.”
He chewed a bite of beef and swallowed it, his expression stormy. “I went to see my mother that day… the day I left Portree. I wanted to understand why my father still loved her, still cared for her when she had done nothing but hurt him his entire life.”
“And did you discover the answer to your question?”
Ian gave her a small rueful smile. “Actually no. I didn’t. Apparently love is something that can’t be explained. It simply is. The notion doesn’t make sense on a scientific level, which is why I struggled so hard to grasp it.”
“Your father must have suffered a great deal.” And his young son had been there to witness it year after year.
“I do believe he loved her and loves her still. At one time I thought things could have been different if only he had only been able to show her. Now, I’m not so sure. She was a deeply flawed woman with problems beyond our ken to help her.”
“Ian…” She felt the few bites of potatoes she had eaten congeal into a lump in her stomach.
“What?”
