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The expression he caught on her face stung his pride into painful life, but he didn’t want her concern, genuine or otherwise. He didn’t deserve concern, and certainly not from her... Hell, life had been easier when she had been filed in his memory banks under the heading of a typical shallow, narcissistic socialite. He had used her once to distract himself from his past and he was doing the same thing now; why didn’t she seem able to recognise a lost cause when she saw one?
‘No, I don’t think you deserved it.’ Chloe’s first thought had been that she was seeing an ex-lover he’d done the dirty on seeking revenge, and to her shame she had been prepared to be the cheering squad, but the impression had only lasted for seconds as it had almost immediately become obvious that she was seeing something much more complicated.
An expression she couldn’t interpret flickered across his face. ‘Well, I do.’ He flung the words at her like a challenge.
‘You must have done something really bad, then,’ she said calmly.
A sense of deep self-loathing rushed through him with the force of a forest fire. His chest heaving, he heard a roar inside his skull before the feelings he’d kept locked inside for years finally exploded out. ‘I killed a man—my best friend.’
* * *
‘I’m sorry.’
His head came up with a snap.
‘Sorry!’ he echoed as he began to walk out of the water towards her with slow deliberate steps. Confession was supposed to be good for the soul but he didn’t feel good or cleansed; he felt furious with himself for losing control, especially in front of the last person he wanted to see...see what?
The question brought him to a halt when he was six inches away from her, so close that she had actually closed her eyes to shut out the awe-inspiring image he presented.
She could feel the heat of his body through the narrow gap between them but it was nothing compared to the anger and frustration that the air was practically coloured with that rippled off him in almost tangible waves.
He dragged a frustrated hand roughly across his forehead, but as he scanned her face for a clue to what she was thinking his own expression was cloaked. ‘Did you hear what I just said?’
‘You said that you killed your best friend. I have no idea what actually happened but, as they put people in jail for murder and you are not there, I’m assuming—’
He interrupted her, speaking through clenched teeth. ‘He is dead.’ His shoulders sagged as the anger drained away leaving a desolate hollowness inside his chest. ‘I am here.’
The emptiness in his flat delivery brought an ache to her throat. Watching him through her lashes, Chloe struggled to hide the dangerous rise of emotions that made her chest tight.
‘I know, Nik, I’m not deaf or blind.’
The hand he was dragging back and forth through his hair stilled at the mild reproof. He shot her a look and wondered for the tenth time in as many seconds why, if he was going to have some sort of meltdown, he had to do it in front of this woman who did not seem to have any concept of personal boundaries.
‘I am not one of your charity projects!’ he snarled, the very idea offending his masculine pride deeply.
Taken aback by the outraged charge, she just blinked.
‘Has it ever occurred to you that people who put so much of themselves into worthwhile causes are compensating for something that is missing in their own lives?’
Anger at this outrageous statement replaced her bewilderment. Face flushed, she compressed her lips and arched a brow. ‘Let me guess what you think is missing in my life—a man,’ she drawled. ‘Why do all men assume that they are essential for a woman’s happiness and fulfilment? If there is anything missing in my life I’ll get myself a dog. They’re far more reliable.’
Eyelids half lowered so that all she could see was a glitter of dark brown, he let the silence that developed between them stretch out taut before breaking it with a thoughtful, ‘I obviously touched a nerve there.’
He’d managed to change the subject from his own trauma, she realised, which she was assuming had been his intention all along. ‘Your friend is dead and I’m sorry. You might feel responsible, you might be responsible in some way, I have no idea, but I do know for definite that you didn’t kill anyone.’
‘How can you possibly know that?’ he jeered. ‘You don’t know me.’
She found herself wondering if anyone did. Did he push the world away or was it just her? ‘Who was that woman?’ she asked quietly.
He turned to look at the sea again. ‘Her name is Helena and she was engaged to Charlie, my best friend.’
‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ Without waiting for him to respond, she brushed a piece of silvered driftwood to one side with a foot, set down her shoes and sat down on the sand, stretching her long legs in front of her, crossing them at the ankle.
Nik turned as she was leaning back on her hands, just as the breeze lifted her hair, blowing it across her face before it settled in a fine silky mesh down her back except for a few errant strands that stuck to her face. Wrinkling her nose, she pursed her lips and huffed them away.
There was something about her beauty that could touch him in a way he hadn’t known he was capable of even at a time like this. He made an effort to resurrect a scowl but gave up on the attempt, deciding instead to sit down beside her.
‘Charlie was a cameraman, the best there was. People often forget when they see some correspondent standing there in the middle of a gun battle that there’s a man behind the camera too, taking the same risks without the same recognition. We’d worked together for two years in the sort of environment where...well, let’s just say that you get to see the best and worst of people.’
