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“That’s why you said you’d never beallowedto travel to Australia, isn’t it? You’re tied to him. For life.”
“Yes. I also need to stay in tip top physical health.” She held up three fingers. “No drugs, tattoos, or cholesterol, just in case.”
Xavier stopped moving, frozen in time, a look of numbness on his face.
She sighed. The prognosis had been explained to her a million times. “If he has a relapse, he’ll need a bone marrow transplant this time, and I’m a perfect match. I’m a walking, talking petri dish of personalised penicillin.” She shrugged. “See? That’s why my family keeps me close. Malcolm might die without me around. That’s why they look after me. That’s why they sent people to search for me.”
“Hope, you’re not spare parts. You’re a whole person. An amazing—”
She shook her head, and he stopped talking. She didn’t need anotherI’ll fix youspeech. With another sigh, she said, “Look, forget everything outside these four walls, okay? Stop trying to fix everything. It’s not fair. Life’s not fair, whatever. Just be with me for the fleeting time we have before I have to go back. We don’t have long. Let’s not waste it arguing. I won’t lie to them for much longer. I can’t.”
That, at last, seem to prompt a reaction. Xavier’s mouth tightened into an unhappy line. “Why not? You’ve done a fucking good job of lying to me so far,Hope.”
The slap shocked them both.
Her palm stung, and a vivid handprint burned on his cheek. A red haze filled her vision. The weight of her own judgement was bad enough. It pressed her down until she could barely move, but to endure his as well was too much. Yes, she’d made choices recently, not all of them smart. At least she was finally making them for herself.
“God, Hope, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” He reached for her, but she deflected his hand. She was furious to find tears welling in her eyes, mortifying tears of self-pity.
She reached for her drink, then realised she’d run out, right when she was being crushed in the middle between her father and Xavier. Neither seemed likely to stop fighting for her. Xavier was right, she had to make another choice before she dragged him down with her, while she still could. It wouldn’t be pretty, but she would have to do it for them both. A clean break.
Do what he never would.
Her mouth opened and words exploded from it, ugly words, staining the air between them like poisonous black smoke.
“You know what, you can take your pretty, pity speeches and fuck off. You’re such a fucking saint, you never lie. No, you spin your little prize-wheel of truths and give me the answers you think I want to hear. Be who you think I want you to be. That’s not honesty,baby,that’s deceit by omission. Head fuckery, pure and simple.”
His gorgeous face paled as he backed away from her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you? You walked into my life from out of nowhere and expected me to share the most intimate parts of myself with you. If I didn’t want to? Fuck it, you try to sex them out of me anyway.You talk a good game about how people should be open and honest, but you’re hiding things, too. Aren’t you?”
She waved her shaking forefinger at him accusingly, the ability to control herself long since gone.
“How is that fair, Captain Sensitive, huh? What do I even know about you? My familylovesme, but you? What haveyouever done to show me what I mean to you? How dare you lecture me on lies and omission. Take a look in the fucking mirror and tell me you’ve been completely honest with me. Go on. Tell me how thefuckI should know who you really are.”
His expression changed as he took a step closer to the bed and threw out his hands, amber liquid splashing out of his glass onto the carpet. “Youaskme, Hope! It’s that easy. Whatever you want to know, just ask. I’m not a bloody mind-reader. I don’t know what you want me to tell you!”
She couldn’t have asked for a better opening. This was it. Time to get it over and done with. An eerie numbness settled over her. She couldn’t feel her arms and legs. Good, that was a good thing.
Probably.
She rose from the bed, struggling to stay upright on her rubber legs, and yanked on her clothes with hands that felt like oven mitts. Once she had her skirt and top back on, she looked him in the eye as she sat on the bed and tugged on her boots. Battle ready. Ready to cut and run.
“Okay great, let’s start with an easy one.” She heard her own voice from a long way off. It sounded calm. “Question one, when were you going to tell me your ex-girlfriend is pregnant?”
Chapter Seven: Indianapolis, Indiana
It is illegal for a man to be sexually aroused in public. Oral sex is banned.
Xavier had resigned himself to never hearing from Hope again. When he packed up his things in San Antonio, he’d simply driven into the night with only a vague idea of where he was headed. There was noHat of Destinyto guide him. All he’d wanted was to put some distance between them. He hadn’t looked in the rear-view mirror until he’d crossed the Texas border.
Hope’s words had stung far more than her slap had. Up until then, Xavier hadn’t considered his own part in these events for even a moment. The adventure, hell, being in the presence of the most perfect creature he’d known had obviously blinded him to the truth. He’d complicated her life, and not for the better.
Yet a huge part of him wished Hope had stood up to her family. Guilt could only bind you so much. Couldn’t she see that? She was living a half-life, someone else’s existence.
Bit late to worry about that. The words he’d uttered, he could never take back. She could justify her deception with family coercion all she liked, but the fact remained, he had been lied to. Again. That didn’t sit well with Xavier.
In the end it didn’t matter if he was right or not, her words had cut deeply. The farther away from her he got, the more herealised that when Hope had needed him the most, he’d done nothing except hurt her.
