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‘I told you not to go there!’
‘I know it was foolish, but I...’
‘But you wanted to defy me. First you don’t come down to our guests and then you go to the one place...the one damned place I told you not to go!’
‘They were not our guests, they were your guests, and, yes, I dare say I did want to defy you, but I never meant...’
He slammed his glass down on the small table by his armchair and stood.
‘You don’t, do you? You don’t mean to strip everything away, right down to the cracks and the flaws, but that is what you do time and again.’
‘I can see why your fear of enclosed places makes your life difficult, but it doesn’t diminish you, Benneit.’
He groaned and turned away, dragging his hands through his hair.
‘Can you not leave me a shred of dignity?’
‘It seems to me you have quite a few shreds of dignity. Perhaps even a few too many.’
‘Damn you, Jo.’
She stood as well, her hands clasped before her, her eyes wide and worried. He wanted to chase away that worry, but he also wanted her to suffer as he was suffering. It was not possible that all the agony was his alone.
He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know anything any more. This is what she had reduced him to. To one Great Big List of Things He Did Not Know.
Except for her. He knew he wanted her.
He laughed and turned away.
‘Maybe you do mean it,’ he said, not even bothering to hide his bitterness and pain. He was beyond that, beyond anything. He didn’t care any longer. ‘Maybe underneath all that show of understanding you enjoy watching me squirm. Torturing me like you have this week.’
‘I haven’t...’
‘Yes, you have. Don’t lie. You know how desperate I am to touch you, to be close to you, how unbearable it is just to feel your arm under my fingers, watch you smiling at Jamie, your eyes lighting up for him, for Angus, even for Mr Warren and Mr Carruthers, but you won’t even look at me. You don’t laugh with me anymore. Does it make you feel powerful to reduce me to this? How do I know you don’t take perverse pleasure in watching me writhe in this purgatory?’
‘It’s not true. Benneit, you do not...you cannot believe that.’
‘I don’t believe much any longer. I have been so abysmally wrong in the past. Why not about you?’
* * *
Jo’s heart was thudding so hard she could barely hear him. She was terrified and exultant all at the same time.
She could not mistake the raw heat in his eyes. It was not just anger and disgust at her and at himself, but the same cavernous need that was eating away at her.
She did not care any longer that it was wrong.
It was so natural that he appeared when she needed him. But to know he had come at such a cost to himself... How could he not see how magnificent he was? That this rescue, against his nature, against his fear, was more precious to her than anything? It was one thing to have dragged her out of the water; it was another thing entirely to follow her through the gates of his personal hell.
Her hero.
If she could have saved him that agony she would, but since she could not, she was glad she had shared it, even if he hated her for it.
She held out her hands, but he stepped back, his face still harsh with anger.
‘Don’t play with me, Jo. I don’t want your comfort.’
‘I don’t want to comfort you, Benneit. I want to make love to you. I’m tired of trying to do what is right. I cannot bear being here any longer and not being yours. Please, Benneit.’
‘No. I may have discovered stores of restraint I never knew I possessed, but they are all but depleted after this hellish week. I won’t have your conscience on mine as well, Jo. If that is how it is to be then you had best start running. Fast. Stay or run, but choose.’
She placed her hands on his chest as she had wanted to in the garden, moving them softly upwards, her fingers lingering on the hint of roughness of his chest hair under the linen, the hard, smooth line of his collarbone.
‘Every night I imagine doing this,’ she whispered. ‘Every night I imagine you touching me. I told myself it was enough to have felt it once, your body against mine. But that is a lie. I want you. For however long we have left. I want this.’
