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She almost stopped him, because that would leave her with Damon and she’d have to face him. She took a deep breath, digging her hands in her pockets to stop from tracing them up his back and around his waist.
“Georgia, I made a mistake coming here, didn’t I?” He sounded different, but he was the same man who’d lied, who’d discarded her.
“Like I made a mistake trusting you.”
He turned to face her. “I won’t stay, but I wanted to see you and apologise.”
“For dumping me, using me. You could’ve done that on the phone. From Sydney. Months ago.”
He inclined his head. “For everything I did to you. For denying you the courtesy of knowing what was going on.”
“I worked that out. You were fairly explicit. You loved the sex but not the person.”
“I fucking loved the sex, but I’d give my voice to have treated you with more respect.”
Her mouth dropped open at the swear word, her body went from strung together to hot liquid flush as it remembered what it was like to be throbbing and needy and have his words purred in her ear as he entered her body.
“And I’d have done anything for you except put you through the same thing that ruined your marriage.”
“Right.” She folded her arms across her chest. “The doing it to protect me defence. I can’t imagine what would make you think I’d buy that.”
He shifted, swaying, knocking against the wall. “I had cancer. I needed more surgery.” She reached for him and stopped herself. That’s why he sounded so different. “The prognosis wasn’t good. I expected to lose my voice box.”
The tears in her eyes were sudden, but they weren’t going to fall. He’d shut her out and she missed him so badly.
“I couldn’t offer you blind and mute. I couldn’t offer you angry and shut down. I know what you went though. You told me when we met you weren’t up for dealing with someone else’s issues like that again. I couldn’t do that to you. I needed you to be free.”
Cancer—dear God. It’d taken her mother, turned her grief-stricken father into a drunk. But Damon was standing here, fit, healthy, with a hushed voice that drenching her in feelings and made her knees loose and her throat tight. “But the worst didn’t happen.”
“It did.”
“You have a voice. With some engineering…” She trailed off. They’d announced the production date on Dystopian Conflict III had slipped. Hamish found that out. “Do you still have cancer?”
He shook his head and a fall of hair slid over his forehead.
He had cancer and he’d sent her away. He’d taken any decision she might make about standing by him away from her. “From where I’m standing there’s no worst.”
“You’re standing another world away from me.”
“I’m standing where you put me. You decided this.”
“I thought losing my voice, my work, was the worst thing I’d deal with. I didn’t understand losing you would be like losing all my other senses.”
She closed her eyes. Couldn’t look at him. He’d never voice Vox again. “I need you to go.” Now, right now, before she did something she’d never recover from, like touch him, forgive him.
She’d once said she’d forgive him anything, but she’d been lust struck, love dulled, she’d had no idea what she was talking about. He’d thrown her away when he was hurting and now he was okay he’d shown up to wreck her all over again. She wasn’t a toy to be picked up and played with one day and thrown away the next. She wasn’t a good time girl or a martyr. And she didn’t know any way to fix this.
“I used to function well without you. I can’t do that anymore, Georgia. I got to keep a voice, but it’s not enough without you.”
Love meant you were attached to someone else, and when you were separated part of you didn’t function as well. He was functioning just fine. He could take his honey tongue and clever words and work their magic on someone else; there’d be plenty of takers.
“Go home, Damon. You said it. I’m not up for this. I don’t want you here. We’ve got nothing to say to each other anymore.”
He blinked, those knowing eyes. “My favourite colour will always be you.”
She turned her head away. She could fall apart when he left.
“My favourite smell, my favourite taste.” He closed the gap between them, a hand finding her side, stepping up to her shoulder, her chin. “Georgia on my mind. Look at me and tell me you don’t want to try again.”
