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‘It’s six a.m.’
‘Online.’
‘Eugenie will be disappointed; she was looking forward to showing you the sights.’
‘I need to get back.’ There was a hint of a plea in her voice.
He shrugged and looped the towel around his middle, drawing her attention once again to his flat, ribbed belly and the thin directional line of dark hair that vanished into the waistband of the black shorts he wore. ‘Are you sure you won’t join me for a swim? It’ll take the edge off it.’
She didn’t make the mistake of asking what it was.
How would he react, she wondered, if she pulled the kaftan open and stood there scars and all? Why are you even asking the question? she asked herself.
He’s not interested in your heart or soul; he only wants the beautiful body—or the one he thinks you still have.
‘I don’t have a swimsuit.’
His eyes dropped. ‘You’ve never skinny-dipped?’
She stiffened and lowered her lashes over an expression that tugged his dark brows into a straight interrogative line above his hooded stare... Sadness seemed an inexplicable reaction for her to have.
‘Are you afraid of the water?’ he asked gently.
Her eyes slid longingly over the still surface of the pool, but she shook her head.
‘Do you often swim at this time of the morning? Are you in training or something?’ She’d only been changing the subject, but now that she’d thrown the idea out there she found it wasn’t actually a struggle to see him competing in a triathlon or something; he had the body, the fitness levels and undoubtedly the competitive streak it took for such an endurance event.
‘No, I usually run.’ He bent and picked up a second towel before rubbing his still-wet hair vigorously with it.
‘So you are in training?’
He dropped the towel. ‘I don’t sleep.’
The confession evoked a rush of sympathy in Chloe.
Midway through her hospitalisation, when the heavy doses of analgesia she’d been prescribed for pain had been reduced, she’d suffered badly from insomnia. Though it was not a time she thought about often, choosing instead to focus on the fact she had survived, the experience had left her wary of taking even an aspirin and she’d gained a personal appreciation of the negative impact insomnia could have on a person’s daily life.
‘I suppose it’s hard to switch off sometimes.’ Especially when you have chosen to carry around guilt the size of a planet... Not your problem, Chloe, she reminded herself, rejecting the stab of empathy that made her chest tighten. People who deserved sympathy were those who actually tried to do something about a problem. ‘I settle for warm milk—not very cutting edge, I know, but that usually does the trick for me.’
He gave a sudden hard laugh. ‘I don’t want to sleep.’
‘You mean you don’t need much sleep?’ He fitted the profile of the driven alpha type you generally associated with surviving on two or three hours a night.
‘I mean I have nightmares.’ The hand he was dragging across his face stilled, shock flickering in his hooded gaze as he asked himself why the hell he had just told her that.
His nightmares were something he had never discussed with anyone. Did he suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder? He was sure there were any number of so-called experts who would be happy to tell him. In Nik’s view the label didn’t matter. Sharing was not his style and the idea of being an object of pity was something that he rejected on a visceral level.
Charlie was dead because of him and no label was going to change that. He didn’t want to feel better... He didn’t deserve to feel better, he accepted that, but the nightmares were a punishment too far.
She blew out a long fatalistic sigh. She knew that she was issuing an invitation to have her head bitten off but she couldn’t bring herself to do nothing. Story of your life, Chloe.
‘So do you want to talk about it?’
He turned his head and glared at her. ‘Can you turn off the empathy for a minute? That’s not what I want from you.’
Chloe held her ground. ‘You’re not responsible for what happened, Nik. Charlie made his own decisions.’
‘How the hell can you say that? I told you...’ He stopped, his eyes narrowing over an expression of angry bewilderment. Why had he told her when he hadn’t told anyone else? He didn’t like that he couldn’t answer the question. He was at her side in three strides, his hand closing around her upper arms as he dragged her into him until their bodies collided. ‘Why do you have to be different?’
