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‘Where to find you.’
‘That’s it?’ She frowned. ‘My address?’
He rolled his neck, as if the end of her tears had released his muscles. ‘Can I sit?’
‘What?’ she asked, confused, and looked at the chair behind him. ‘Of course. Sit down.’
‘No.’ He dipped his head to the space beside her. ‘I want to sit next to you.’
‘Oh...’
‘Unless you don’t want me to.’
She looked at the space between them. From his chair to where she was perched on the sofa. ‘Okay...’ A flush crawled up her throat. ‘Youshouldsit next to me,’ she said—because he should. ‘We should find out what the test says together, not while we’re sitting six feet apart.’
He came to her. Soundless steps of solid muscle. Stalking towards her. He sat down. Mirrored her and perched at the end of the seat. He looked at the test, and she looked at him.
Her heart did a double beat. Now was the time, wasn’t it? To give him all the facts. Before they looked at the test. Her story in exchange for his.
‘Tell me what you know of my past,’ she started, because it was the right thing to say. ‘And I’ll fill in the blanks.’
‘I know that your birth name is Flora Campbell. You were born to a woman named Clara Campbell. Father unknown. Your parents adopted you at fourteen weeks old and you became Flora Bick.’
‘Is that it? My file didn’t tell you that my biological mother was an addict? That she was addicted to substances? Hard ones?’ She swallowed, but didn’t allow herself to look away from him. ‘They were in my system when I was born. I was born an addict...’ Her chest hurt and she rubbed at it.
His fingers flexed on his knees and, absurdly, she wanted to hold them. His hand. Not for him this time. But for herself.
He turned his body, his gaze, and she locked on to the warmth of him. The reality.
‘You can tell me.’
He needed the facts too, didn’t he?
She pushed out a silent breath ‘I have an addictive personality.’
‘I know. You said so that night.’
Had she?
She felt as if she’d said so much and yet so little. She swallowed the urge to relive every moment of their time together. Every word. Every caress of his fingers. Every kiss.
‘I obsess. And I’m impulsive.’
‘Your impulsivity brought you to me,’ he countered. ‘To my bed.’
He didn’t touch her, but his words shot straight to her stomach. They arrowed with piercing accuracy to the feminine heart of her. She pulsed with the memory.
‘What if I give the bad bits to the baby? The things inside me? What if I can’t—?’ She struggled to find the words she needed to explain.
‘We might have made a baby,piccolina. How can a baby be bad?’
‘My parents have always encouraged me to stay in control of my emotions. To be led by my head and not my heart—to measure my impulses against what the consequences might be. I didn’t do that in London. I just wanted—’ she sucked in a lungful of air ‘—you.’
‘Our attraction isn’t something to be viewed as toxic. It’s natural, Flora. It is human to desire. To want. You acted freely in London. You were driven by your feelings and you expressed them without remorse. Without restraint. How can it be a bad thing to be free?’
‘Free?’ she echoed.
Something strange was happening in her chest. It was getting lighter. The burden of expectation she’d carried around her whole life was being lifted.
