AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And then she had wanted him so badly, and in wanting him she’d forgotten that she knew nothing of how relationships were meant to work.
‘I know I shouldn’t have lied, but when you showed me that photo I panicked. I was scared that if I told you the truth—if I told you that my parents had spent their marriage hating one another—you might see things differently. Seeusdifferently. So you’re right. I did lie to you. I lied because you made me want the thing that scared me most of all.’
Love, and the possibility of love everlasting.
Lying in his bed, with his arms wrapped around her and sunlight and birdsong filling the room, for the first time she’d had love and hope and faith. And it had been intoxicating—hehad been intoxicating. But she should have known then how it would end. With lies and confusion and regrets.
She looked away before he could see her tears. Before she could see his face change. She didn’t want to go back to the way he had looked at her in London, with so much anger and contempt. So much distance.
‘What was it that you wanted?’
He spoke so quietly that at first she thought she had imagined his voice. But then he said it again.
‘What was it that you wanted?’
She wanted it still. More than she ever had. Because now she knew him. But she couldn’t tell him that. There was too much history. Too much hurt.
‘I wanted you. I wanted us. Before, I’d thought a relationship...marriage...was just a trap, a cage. But you made it feel like danger and freedom and safety all at once.’
It was only as he reached out and pulled her closer that she realised she had spoken the words out loud. She felt naked and young and stupid, and terrified that he would see too much—see the love she still felt for him. She buried her face against his shoulder.
‘I felt the same way.’
His cheek was warm against her, and his body was strong and so, so comforting, but still she couldn’t look at him.
‘Dove—’
She felt him slide his hands into her hair, and then he tilted her face up to him, forcing her to look at him.
‘I’m sorry. For making you work for me. For threatening you. Threatening Alistair. I shouldn’t have done it. I knew it was wrong, but I was angry. With you. With myself. With everything and everyone.’ He dropped his hands and his face twisted. ‘I’m always angry. I don’t want to be, but it’s—’
He broke off and, seeing his pain, feeling his fatigue, she felt her heart crack in two.
‘I’m so tired of feeling like this all the time. That’s why I have to make this acquisition happen. So I can move on. And Ineedto move on. But I’m not going to force you to stay and do something you’re not comfortable with.’
‘Are you firing me?’ she asked, struggling to keep her voice steady. To keep looking at him as if there was something more inside her than the terrible silent scream that was breaking her ribs apart.
His hands caught hers. ‘No, but if you stay it has to be of your own free will. And if you choose to leave there won’t be any repercussions. I don’t think I made that clear before.’
There was a perfect stillness.
Did he really think that was why she had stayed?
He was holding her loosely, his thumbs resting against the soft white underside of her wrists. But she felt the press of his thumbs in every part of her body.
Her eyes found his. He was giving her a choice. Only there was no choice. Because she didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to lose him. Not yet, anyway.
‘I want to stay,’ she said quietly.
Stretched between the silence and the drumming of his heart, Gabriel felt his body soften with relief. Only a few days ago he had asked Dove to stay.
‘I don’t want it to end like this. It feels wrong,’ he had said.
And she had stayed.
Only he couldn’t bear thinking that it was because of the threats he’d made back in London, and then again on the yacht. Nor could he bear the idea of her leaving, even though he knew that she had every right to go.
And yet, incredibly, she was choosing to stay. Even though he knew that she would never do this—seek revenge after so long. But he didn’t know another way to finish what his birth mother had started.
