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He was not expecting a reprimand and for a moment he was...shocked. He thought how any other woman would have hurled herself into his arms and the slight deflation he felt was almost certainly something to do with his ego. And mightn’t that be a good thing? he questioned with a self-awareness which suddenly made him feel uncomfortable.
‘I thought that if I’d warned you, you might have refused to see me,’ he said, his gaze training hard on her face. ‘Would you?’
She shrugged as if she didn’t really care. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You need any help, Carl?’
The Adonis had stepped forward and Luis held onto his temper with difficulty as Carly shook her head again.
‘No, I’m fine,’ she said.
‘I need to speak to you, Carly,’ said Luis softly, flicking a dismissive glance towards the youth. ‘In private.’
For a moment she hesitated. He saw emotions he didn’t recognise, and some he did, crossing those iced-tea eyes, before she looked down at her watch.
‘I’ve got half an hour before my next lecture, so you’ll have to be quick.’
‘I thought you were never on time.’
‘That was in the old days. I’ve changed.’ Defiantly, she met his eyes. ‘We can walk in the grounds. Come with me.’
He was barely aware of the total silence which suddenly descended on the courtyard, or the excited chatter which rose up before they were barely out of earshot. The grass was sodden beneath their feet as they left the courtyard and the bare branches of the trees were etched in forbidding lines against the low sky.
‘What are you doing here, Luis?’ Her breath was like a cloud of smoke as it billowed out into the cold air.
He swallowed. He hadn’t really planned what he was going to say because hadn’t some cynical side of his nature wondered whether this might just turn out to be a form of catharsis. That he would take one look at her and wonder what all the fuss had been about. Why he’d been unable to sleep or to think of anything much which didn’t involve Carly Conner with her clever mind and soft body and that way of prising out secrets he’d locked away from everyone else.
But it wasn’t turning out that way. It was as he had suspected all along. His heart was tight in his chest, as if an iron band were squeezing all the blood out of it, and his pulse was racing with a feeling which felt like excitement and exultation and apprehension all rolled into one. He’d experienced something like it when he’d been waiting on the starting line at the notoriously tough twenty-four-hour race at Le Mans, or any of the other myriad dangerous racetracks he’d tackled during his race career, but nothing like this. Nothing like this.
He stared into eyes as cold as chips of ice and suddenly it all came spilling out from a place deep inside him. ‘I love you,’ he said simply and waited for her reaction as he repeated the words in a voice he’d never heard himself use before. ‘I love you, Carly Conner.’
Carly shook her head and her hands clenched into tight fists. She wished she hadn’t forgotten her gloves because then she could have avoided her fingernails digging into her flesh like this. But the sharp pain helped her focus on her anger, and anger was the safest thing she had to hang onto right then. She glared at him. How dared he do this? How dared he come here and disrupt the life which she was building for herself—day by day? How dared he, by coming out with something he probably didn’t mean, undo all her good work of trying to forget him? How dared he come here and try to break her heart all over again?
‘You don’t “do” love,’ she snapped. ‘Remember? It’s top of your list of requirements for lovers—that they won’t dare to expect anything like that from you. No wedding bells or clouds of confetti for you. Your words, Luis. And I don’t have time for meaningless declarations. If you’re missing sex then f-find someone else. That shouldn’t be a problem for someone like you.’
She made to walk away but his hand reached out and caught her arm and she wanted to shake him off, but she couldn’t. How could he do that? she wondered desperately. How would her physiology lecturer explain it? How could just one touch
from a man make you defy all your instincts? Send your pulse rocketing and fill your mind with thoughts you were intent on not having...
‘You’re right. I didn’t do love,’ he agreed, still holding onto her arm. ‘Because it has never happened to me before. I never thought it could. I’d only ever seen love as a negative. As dark and destructive. As full of pain and lies and betrayal. I didn’t realise that it could make you feel a part of something bigger than yourself. Could make you feel as if you were really alive. And you showed me that, Carly. You showed me that like nobody else ever could.’
‘Stop it,’ she whispered. ‘Please, Luis. Just go away.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you’ve heard what I’ve got to say. I miss you more than any words can say. Nothing seems to make sense without you there, and I was a fool to let you go.’
‘You didn’t let me go,’ she said. ‘You pushed me away. You know you did.’
‘Yes, I did,’ he said heavily. ‘I hold my hands up to that. So maybe it follows that I don’t deserve your love, Carly. That I shouldn’t be given a second chance, because I threw it all back in your face.’ He swallowed. ‘So if you tell me that you no longer love me and that you don’t want me in your life, then I’ll turn around and walk away from here and I will never bother you again. I give you my word on that.’
She stared at him and sucked in a deep breath. ‘I don’t love you.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘You arrogant bastard.’
‘If you didn’t love me, then you wouldn’t be looking at me like that. Your eyes wouldn’t be asking me to hold you properly, nor your lips parting because you want me to kiss them.’
‘Luis—’
