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‘Are you okay?’ Nico asked.
‘Of course,’ Aurora said.
She knew she must look a sight, with her damp dress and hair, but there was nothing she could do about that.
Nico’s shirt was damp too, and his black hair was wet from the rain. She guessed this was what he would look like coming out of the shower, and thought of the shower they hadn’t been able to have last night.
‘Do you have any regrets?’ Nico asked.
‘About last night?’ Aurora checked. ‘None.’
She wouldn’t change it even if she could. The things Aurora would change would be the now and the future without him.
‘Do you?’
‘In part,’ Nico admitted, ‘because I loathe mixed messages and—’
‘I get the message, Nico,’ Aurora halted him. ‘I heard it loud and clear—you don’t want to marry me and—’
‘I don’t want to marry, period,’ Nico said. ‘I don’t ever want a relationship.’
And therein lay the difference between them, thought Aurora. How did he so easily separate sex from a relationship? For she felt as if she was in a relationship with Nico. Right now, as they walked through the ruins, she felt the closest she ever had to another soul.
‘Aurora, you don’t want to be married to me.’
Yes, Aurora did. But for dignity’s sake she had to sound as if she wasn’t imploding when she spoke, and so she took a breath.
‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be married to a man whose skin crawls at the thought of being here. I don’t want to be married to a man who keeps his hand on my shoulder but his eyes on the pretty—’
‘What are you talking about?’
Aurora just shrugged, and then asked him a question. ‘When are you leaving?’
‘I’ll see what’s happening with the fires,’ Nico said, ‘but I expect I shall leave today.’
Even the heavens were against her, Aurora decided, because as he said it the drizzle turned into heavy rain. Yes, he would be leaving today.
‘Aurora, did you think last night might change things?’
‘No.’
She had been under no illusion that having sex with Nico would change anything for him. There had been a kernel of hope, though…
And Nico crushed it.
‘I’ll never marry, Aurora.’
‘I shall,’ she said, and she said it harshly.
Her words punished Nico, but determinedly he did not let it show. ‘You have your own life to live and you have no obligation to me.’
‘I know.’
‘So, please, if you are going to help care for my father, at least give me your bank details.’
‘I don’t want your dirty money.’
‘Dirty money?’
