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‘Damian and I got into terrible fights with him and his crowd for years.’
‘I thought you said Damian looked out for you at school.’
‘He did. I might not have explained exactly how he looked out for me. Sometimes we all came to blows,’ he says with an impish grin.
‘Naughty boys,’ I say. ‘Thank goodness Daisy is better behaved than you two.’
‘Tricky wank-face must have known you worked for me and he’s trying to get at me,’ he mutters.
‘I didn’t tell him anything about you. I’m very discreet about my employment.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ he says.
A painful thought occurs to me. ‘Don’t you think he could be offering me a job because he thinks I’m the best person for it?’
‘Of course. He’s worked with you. He knows how committed and wonderful you are, so that’s not even a question. But he’s also seen a chance for revenge. I’ll give you all the funding you want for whatever charity, but I don’t want you involved with him.’
He’s talking to me again like he has a say in what I do. A heady feeling grips me as I imagine what it would be like to be with him all the time. His alpha weirdness is sexy and turns me on even more. All my senses are on red-alert and if he touches me, I’m going to make love to him. He’s not with that woman, after all, and I’m past caring whether it’s sensible to show him how much I want him.
But I provoke him a bit more and test how far I can go. ‘I would like to know what he was going to offer me before I refuse the job.’
He shoots off down a narrow lane and the car comes to a smooth stop beneath a huge oak tree and he fixes me with a stare. ‘You didn’t answer me. Why do you need another job, Nat?’
My skin prickles as he keeps looking at me, and I know I’ve got to tell him the truth.
‘I thought you were going to marry Lizzy.’ I blink back the tears as they fill my eyes. ‘I can’t stay on with you, living in your house when you’re going to marry someone else. It’s for the best that I find another job.’
‘Best for who?’ he demands, and I hear the raw pain echo through his words.
I swallow the emotion rising in my chest and try to hold back the tears. ‘Best for us all.’
‘Daisy won’t think it’s best for her,’ he says, his deep voice like gravel.
‘I know. I don’t want to leave Daisy, but given what’s happening, I don’t have much choice.’
‘So, you want to leave me?’
‘Seb, I don’twantto leave you. But we’re not together. The whole friends who fuck thing isn’t going to work out, is it? I was stupid to suggest it.’
He tuts and a shadow falls over his face. ‘Don’t say that. We’re so much more than that.’
‘Are we?’
‘You know we are.’
We fall quiet again for what seems like an endless time. My spirits are sinking even lower, and I don’t know what else to say.
It’s hard to force the words out because wanting him like this makes me feel naked, but an inner voice taunts me not to be a coward. I must tell him how I feel. I don’t want to regret not telling him the truth whilst I had the chance. My insides tremble, and I whisper my deepest fear to him. There’s no going back now. ‘But you don’t want me.’
The stillness in the car is terrifying. All I hear are the distant murmurs of nature in the vast park against the backdrop of my pounding heart.
Finally, he breaks the heavy silence. And when he speaks, his resonant deep voice is like soft velvet trailing across my skin. I shiver as all my senses heighten and I want him to touch me more than I remember wanting anything or anyone.
‘What makes you think that?’ he says. He swivels in his seat to look into my eyes, and the world spins around me as our lips touch.
CHAPTER35
Sebastian
