‘What happened to your mother?’ Skye asked.
‘She died about two months after she left—a car accident in Italy.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be—the family will expect us to know things like this about each other.’ He knew that wasn’t what she had been apologising for, but it made it easier to circumnavigate the solid ache in his chest. ‘It’s good; we need to know more about each other, so keep asking.’
He looked up at her. She had her feet tucked under her and a light throw over her lap. She seemed to fit, as if she’d always been here at the house. The reds in her hair blended with the dark wood and the paleness of her skin echoed the pale walls. She was a thousand textures. Smooth, soft, sharp, strong...
‘Why did you think I was a virgin?’
His eyes snapped to hers in surprise. That was not what he’d expected her to ask. Her fingers were playing with the throw and it was clear she found the question deeply uncomfortable. He could lie to her. It would have been easier, for her and for him. Less...dangerous. But that wasn’t his style.
‘You don’t seem that in touch with your sensual side,’ he said, wondering if it was a trick of the light that made her cheeks seem to flush. ‘You don’t seem very aware of that part of you. You dress like a secretary.’
‘I am a secretary. Well, office manager, but...’
He smiled. ‘But you weren’t working when you came out to Costa Rica to meet me. It’s more than the clothes though. It’s...’ he waved his hand towards her and shrugged ‘...it’s the way you are,’ he said, avoiding the simple truth he felt to his soul.
‘What is it? Just tell me,’ she said, finally meeting his gaze.
He clenched his jaw. ‘You don’t behave as if someone has given you pleasure.’
Skye clamped her teeth together to prevent whatever reaction was welling up within her from escaping. Because she didn’t know what would come out. Embarrassment, anger, hurt, arousal, cries, screams, sobs. She felt it all.
She might as well have been a virgin.
‘Alistair was...we were young.’ Why was she defending him? Because they had been young. They hadn’t known better. Not really.
‘How young?’ Benoit demanded hotly.
‘Not that young,’ Skye said with a small smile at the strange kind of protectiveness that seemed to be on display. ‘He just...’
‘You were pressured?’ Benoit had gone very still.
‘No. Not in the way you think. We’d been together for the last two years of school. I don’t even know what he was doing with me, even now. We hardly saw each other; I was so busy with Summer and Star and school. And he’d been patient and kind and understanding.’ Sweet. It had felt sweet. ‘But when it came time to leave school, to move onto the next stage in our lives, he thought I was going with him to London.’
‘You didn’t want to?’
‘I did. But Summer was starting GCSEs, Star her A-levels. I couldn’t go. He was hurt, sad. And...’ She shrugged, unable to find the words as an adult, the ache in her chest, the awkwardness clogging her mind.
‘You slept with him because you couldn’t go with him to London?’
‘I wanted him to have something that he wanted,’ she said, heat in her cheeks. It seemed wrong, looking back over the distance of time.
‘But did you want to?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. She’d wanted him to have that.
‘You shouldn’t make a gift of yourself like that. Your sexuality, your pleasure—that’s not something to give away. You can share it, but you must have it for yourself at the same time.’
‘Do you need to know anything else about him or are we done?’ Skye forced the words out.
‘You can ask me anything you like,’ he said, his tone immediately lighter, for which she was eternally thankful. Because what he’d said had made her warm, ache, hurt and happy all at the same time.
‘Your girlfriends? No, thanks.’
‘Really? You don’t want to ask me anything?’