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His sigh was deep and heartfelt. ‘No.’
She didn’t know what answer she was expecting, but it wasn’t that. ‘No?’
‘What good would it have done?’ His voice was quiet and steady, in direct contrast to hers. ‘Listen to you now. You don’t know what to say to me, how to deal with me. That’s exactly what I was trying to avoid.’
Lizzie could think of plenty of things to say to him, but not now. Not on the phone and not when she was so cross with him, both for leaving without talking and for being so irritatingly calm. ‘Damn you, Nick. I hate it when you speak to me in those careful, measured tones.’
There was a long pause. ‘That’s a shame, because this is who I am.’
‘Nick . . .’ This conversation was going all wrong, and she didn’t know how to get it back on track.
‘Take care. Have a safe flight back. Goodbye, Lizzie.’
She listened to the dial tone in a haze of confusion and utter frustration. Then she threw the phone on the limo floor, stretched out on the seat and screamed.
Thank heaven for the glass screen separating her and the driver.
It was only when she arrived at the hotel she’d been put up in that her brain finally started to make sense of everything she’d heard. Nick loved her. The person who knew her better than anyone else, who knew absolutely everything about her, including her God-awful mistakes, actually, hallelujah, jump with joy, shout from the rooftops, loved her.
A slow smile crept across her face, quickly followed by an ear to ear grin. If someone as rock steady as Nick still loved her, even after everything he’d seen, she couldn’t be that much of a screw up, could she?
Chapter Thirty
Lizzie knocked on the familiar rustic wooden door. It was ten o’clock on Sunday morning and she’d taken a punt on Nick being at the barn, rather than in London. After she’d finished the final show on Saturday she’d driven down to her parents’ home. Her home, now she’d bought it from Nick.
There she’d spent the night trying to work out what she was going to say to him, which was a laugh really, because she knew even if she’d had a week, instead of a night, she still wouldn’t know how to handle this meeting. It had been three days since Nick had admitted he loved her and then walked away. Three days during which she’d fretted about whether his version of love, and her version of love, meant the same thing.
The door creaked opened. ‘Lizzie?’
She watched as a flash of pleasure came and went in his deep brown eyes, leaving only confusion. He had the look of a man who’d just woken up, only to find he had a giant hangover. She could almost see his mind trying to grasp what was going on. Whether she was real or not. As she peered at him more closely, she realised her hunch about the hangover probably wasn’t far off the mark. His hair was mussed, his face drawn and badly in need of a shave. Those glorious brown eyes, on closer inspection, were bloodshot and exhausted.
‘You look terrible,’ she blurted. Instinctively she reached out to hug him, but he flinched, moving quickly into the hall.
‘It’s good to see you, too,’ he replied stiffly, moving aside to let her in.
A night to consider what she was going to say to him and the best she’d managed was you look terrible? She was a flipping genius. ‘Sorry, it’s just you look kind of tired.’ She let the sentence hang, knowing if she said anything further she was just going to dig herself an even bigger hole.
‘I had a late night.’
She walked straight past him and into the lounge, hyper aware of his long, lean body following quietly, a few steps behind. It felt ridiculous, all this stiff formality, the tension. Why couldn’t they just hug each other like they used to do? Like she so very much wanted to. ‘So I see,’ she replied instead, pointedly looking at the empty whiskey bottle and single glass. What was he trying to do? Drink himself to death?
Hastily he removed the evidence, throwing the bottle forcibly into the bin. ‘So, what brings you here?’ he asked, his restless eyes seeming to touch everywhere but her. ‘I thought you’d be on your way back to LA by now.’
‘I thought I’d take a break. Check up on the house.’
He nodded, thrusting a hand through his wayward hair, making it look even more dishevelled. ‘I would have gone in and checked it for you. You only had to ask.’
‘I know, but I’d already decided I was going to stay in England for a bit anyway.’
Silence hung between them. Lizzie wanted him to ask why, but he didn’t. Instead he stared down at his grey tracksuit bottoms and creased T-shirt, as if suddenly realising what a mess he looked.
‘Look, sorry, I wasn’t expecting any visitors.’ Finally he met her eyes, giving her a small, rueful smile. ‘I’m not quite with it. Do you mind if I grab a quick shower? I may act a bit more human after that.’ He indicated to the kitchen. ‘Make yourself at home. You know where everything is.’
For a moment he held her gaze, his expression telling her quite clearly he remembered the time she’d spent here, when it had been her home, too. As his look burned into hers, Lizzie’s shoulders relaxed. There, in his eloquent eyes, she’d seen all she needed to see. Her heart lifted and she started to smile, but he quickly turned and walked towards the stairs.
While Lizzie reacquainted herself with the kitchen, Nick tried to revive himself under the hot shower. Of all the times for her to pop in. She must think he was some heartbroken saddo, pining away for her. Which, okay, wasn’t far from the truth. But, hell, it wasn’t as if he broke into the whiskey every night. Just on those occasions after he’d accidentally blurted out his feelings to the woman he loved, only for her to stare back at him in shock.
Dragging on a pair of faded jeans and a navy polo shirt, he scrutinised himself in the mirror. It was bad enough she’d found out he was in love with her. He wasn’t going to humiliate himself further by giving her the impression he couldn’t live without her. Picking up his razor he shaved the stubble off his chin and then combed his damp hair into some sort of order. The face that stared back at him was still gaunt, bearing all the signs of a man who’d hardly slept the last three nights, but it was a definite improvement on fifteen minutes ago.
