AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Shock registered on her face. Then she reddened and looked away from him, fixing her gaze on the floor. ‘Why?’
Her voice was so small, so defeated that he almost wavered. Almost. Euan tried to keep his voice steady.
‘Because you have things to do there. You’ll be busy with the installation for The Centre...’ That wasn’t what he meant at all. ‘I just think that it would be better if we gave each other a bit of space.’
‘You mean...you’re sending me away.’ There was a thread of anger there, but her voice was mostly just dull resignation.
How could he explain to her that this was different? That it wasn’t like the rejection she’d suffered at the hands of her mother, or even the one that Sally’s death had wrought. It was for her benefit. She couldn’t carry on like this, so fragile behind her surface confidence, without confronting her demons.
‘Sam, the last two weeks have been...’ They’d been the best of his life. ‘They’ve been great. But you have a chance to make a real difference. You need to give it all that you’ve got.’
She rubbed her hand across her eyes and met his gaze. She was composed now, her face a vacant mask. He wondered what the real Sam was thinking, and decided he probably didn’t have a right to know any more.
‘You’re telling me that I should be getting on with my work. A bit of an about-face, don’t you think?’
He deserved that barb. Deserved a lot more. ‘I’m saying that coming here has raised a lot of issues for you and without sorting them out they will eventually tear us apart.’
Anger flashed in her eyes. ‘Oh, so that’s what this is, is it? I’m just another one of your projects, am I? The girl with the hang-ups...’
Never. She was so wrong it was almost laughable. But he knew Sam’s pride wouldn’t let her stay if he let her think it, and if she blamed him then all the better. At least she wouldn’t be blaming herself.
‘I know it was wrong, Sam. I’m sorry.’
She pressed her lips together, standing slowly. Reached for her laptop. For a moment Euan thought she was going to hit him with it, and rather wished that she would, but she clasped it to her chest, as if she needed to shield herself from him.
‘Yeah. I’m sorry too.’ She turned, and walked away, slamming the front door behind her.
* * *
Anger carried her back to the tiny flat over the office, where she threw all her things into her travelling bag, and impelled her up the hill to the railway station. An hour on the train, glaring through the window as a blood-red sunset began to form on the horizon, and then half an hour on the Tube and she was back home, kicking her front door open and throwing her bags onto the bed.
How dared he? How dared he? One of his projects, was she? He was a fine one to talk. Euan had a few hang-ups of his own. What about the one with that ex-wife of his, the one that made him so damn protective all the time? And what had happened to ‘Whatever works for us is okay’?
She stopped, stood stock still. Euan wasn’t the kind of man who manipulated his way into a woman’s bed. He was honest to a fault, in touch with his feelings. Euan...
‘Damn you, Euan.’ It was she who’d said it, not him. He hadn’t contradicted her, but when she thought about it he hadn’t really confirmed it either. He’d let her think the worst of him.
Maybe he did love her? Sam tipped her handbag upside down, the contents falling onto the bed, and snatched her phone up. Found his number and then stopped. It didn’t make any difference why he’d wanted her to go. He’d wanted her to go and that was that.
She flung the phone down onto the bed. She knew Euan well enough to know that once he’d made his mind up, decided that something was right, there was no going back on it. She sank down onto the bed, tears streaming down her face.
If he’d been less honourable, less aware of her issues, he wouldn’t have done this. But, then, they were just two of the reasons that she’d fallen in love with him...
* * *
Euan couldn’t keep away. He walked to the office in the gathering dusk, looking up at the darkened windows of the flat. Letting himself in, he picked up the keys that Sam had posted back through the letterbox.
Upstairs, her scent still lingered, like a cruel reminder. The flat was quite different from the home he
’d returned to when Marie had left, but the silence was the same.
He stood for a moment, staring at the bed, resisting the temptation to bury his face in one of the pillows and pretend for a moment that she was still here. What next?
Nothing. Euan turned, walked down the stairs and out into the night. Nothing came next.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SAM’S CAR WAS parked in the small car park outside the church hall. She’d been gripping the steering-wheel, unable to coax herself into movement, for the last five minutes.
