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‘Who?’
His eyes weren’t warm or kind any more. They were hard. ‘None of your business,’ she snapped, focussing on filling the kettle. She didn’t want to have this conversation. Not now, not ever. And certainly not with Nick.
‘When someone hurts a woman I care about, it is my business,’ he told her quietly. When he could see she wasn’t going to tell him, his jaw clenched. ‘Was it Hank?’
* * *
Lizzie’s head jerked, just a small movement, but enough to affirm Nick’s suspicion. His gut twisted as he imagined what Hank must have been trying to do that required him to hold her so tightly it bruised her skin. With an oath he moved away and dragged a hand through his hair. ‘Have you got any idea how hard it is to watch you demeaning yourself with this procession of arrogant pricks?’
She flinched from his words but looked at him squarely. ‘It’s my life,’ she retorted, anger simmering in her big blue eyes.
‘Yes, but don’t expect me to sit back and watch you mess it up,’ he asserted bluntly. ‘You look like hell.’
‘My brother’s just died, how do you expect me to look?’ Her anger was no longer simmering but boiling over.
‘Robert effectively died a long time ago.’ His sympathy was in short supply, now he’d seen the bruises. ‘There’s more to all this than his death. First there was Charles. Now Hank. Even before Charles, that list you gave me suggested a type, and it wasn’t the kind you’d want to take home to your mother.’
Her eyes flared. ‘Lucky I don’t have a mother then.’
He ignored her. ‘She’d be horrified, and you know it. You’re letting these guys treat you like shit. Why?’
‘Perhaps it’s what I deserve,’ she replied in a voice so quiet he almost couldn’t hear it.
‘What you deserve?’ Incredulity had him almost shouting at her.
‘Yes, what I deserve.’ Her voice was stronger now and she was walking towards him, hands on her hips, eyes blazing. ‘I killed Robert. I killed all of them. Now tell me I don’t deserve to be punished.’
He stared at her open-mouthed. ‘Is that really what you believe?’
‘Yes.’ It came out as a tortured cry. Then she shoved at him. ‘Now go away and leave me alone.’
Nick couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but Lizzie was glaring at him with such torment in her eyes, he knew she did. She believed every awful word she was saying. With his heart feeling like lead, he moved to put his arms around her, but she backed away.
‘No, don’t touch me.’ Her voice started to break. ‘Piss off.’
‘Like hell.’ More roughly than he’d have liked, because she was still trying to get away from him, Nick wrapped his arms around her and held her. Held her until she stopped trying to break free and finally started to cry.
Then he lifted her and carried her over to the sofa and held her again, just as he had all those months ago when he’d found her here.
‘The driver of the other car killed them,’ he told her firmly. ‘Were you driving it?’
She glanced up, irritation written across her gorgeous tear-stained face. ‘Don’t try your fancy logic with me. I was the reason they were in that car. I was the one who phoned them, terribly homesick and pleaded with them to come and see me. If I hadn’t begged them to come, they wouldn’t have been anywhere near the damn car.’
‘And why do you think they came running when you called them?’
‘Because I asked them to.’
He shook his head, smoothing a hand down her soft blonde hair. ‘No, Lizzie. Because they loved you. Do you seriously think they’d want to see you like this? Blaming yourself for their deaths? Is that truly what you believe?’
When she didn’t answer he held his breath and hugged her closer. ‘Have you ever talked to anyone else about this?’ he asked.
Silently she shook her head.
‘Then it’s time you did. Bottling up this awful guilt for these last two years has made you unable to think straight. You’ve forgotten how much your mum and dad loved you. How much Robert loved you. They’d want you to be happy, not tormented by a totally misplaced sense of responsibility for what happened.’
* * *
Slowly Lizzie absorbed his words, feeling an incredible sense of relief that at last she’d voiced her anguish out loud. Nick hadn’t done any of the things she’d feared — not condemned her, shouted at her stupidity or laughed at her. He’d simply come back at her with quiet understanding and reasoned argument. For the first time since the accident she took herself out of the equation and tried to see things as her parents would have. There was no doubt in her mind that seeing their beloved daughter riddled with guilt, punishing herself for her selfishness, wasn’t what her family would have wanted. They’d done nothing but support her in her desire to become a model and in her move to America. Heck, how often had they told her how proud they were of what she’d achieved? How could she have forgotten that?
