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He stepped forward, his hands closing around the tops of her arms. ‘No, you sent your father to do that, Dove.’
‘For the last time—I didn’t send him to find you and I never asked him to pay you off. I didn’t know anything about what he’d done until he came and told me.’
She tried to pull away from him but he tightened his grip, holding her firmly, pressing his fingers into her skin.
‘You’re lying. How did he find me, then? No one knew about us except you and me.’ He felt a sting of shame. ‘You didn’t want anyone to know. Or are you going to deny that too?’
He could tell from the heavy silence that followed his question that she wasn’t, but instead of feeling a warm rush of satisfaction, he felt a dull ache creeping through his chest.
‘There was no way your father could have found out where I was waiting unless you told him.’
‘I didn’t tell him.’
Now she jerked her arms violently, and this time he let her go. Her beautiful face was pale and the shake was back in her voice as she said, ‘I don’t know how he found out. But I do know that when he offered you money to leave me you took it.’
He stared down at her, his heart hammering against his ribs. She was making it sound so easy, and in some ways it had been. All he’d had to do was say yes. Only it was so much more complicated than that. More than anything he had wanted to throw the money back in Oscar’s face, take his rage and his pain and unleash it upon the woman who couldn’t even be bothered to reject him in person.
But confronting Dove, making herfeelwhat she had done to him, would have meant revealing so much—too much. That was why he had taken the money and walked. Because the hardest thing to do had also been the easiest.
He shook his head. ‘That’s not how it happened.’
‘Then tell me what did happen.’
Remembering the helpless, nightmarish daze of his conversation with Oscar Cavendish, he felt his stomach knot. But he knew they had always been heading to this point. Everything along the way had just been diversions on the road...
The train had been delayed twice. First because of engineering works, then because of a points failure. Gabriel checked his phone again. But he had left plenty of time, so he still had ten minutes to spare before Dove was due to meet him in the hotel bar, and they weren’t flying out to the States until this evening.
The dingy hotel wouldn’t have been his choice, he thought as he nodded at the barmaid. But Dove had suggested it, and it would only be for one drink.
He ordered a lager that he knew he was too nervous to drink and forced his breathing to slow. They had agreed to tell their parents after they’d reached California. Part of him would have liked to tell his family now; he knew they were worried about him, and that they would worry less when they met Dove.
Her parents would almost certainly be less enthusiastic about the match. She hadn’t said as much, but he’d guessed that was why she wanted to keep their relationship a secret. And he understood secrets.
His phone buzzed and, picking it up, he felt his heart skip a beat as he read the message from Dove.
Running late. Wait for me.
She was never late—but then it wasn’t every day you ran off with your lover.
He stared down at the screen, seeing Dove’s soft grey eyes, and that extraordinarily sweet smile that made his heart bang like a drum.
It had done more than that. Her smile, her love, had been a balm for the sting of Fenella’s rejection. Dove made him feel safe and reckless. He almost wrote backUntil the end of time...But in the end he settled for a simple X.
‘Can I get you another drink?’
The barmaid was hovering by the table.
‘Why not?’ He held out his glass. ‘And a gin and tonic as well, please.’
‘Are you meeting someone?’ Her face changed just a little.
He nodded. ‘She’s running a bit late.’
Just one drink.
Running a bit late.
Throughout the afternoon, as the minutes ticked into first one and then two and then three hours, he remembered those words. He texted her, obviously. Then he called her, but it went straight to voicemail.
