A laugh chokes out of him and the blood leaves my face, my pulse slowing down
as I piece the nightmare together.
‘It didn’t take you long at all, did it?’ he says.
I don’t want to believe he truly witnessed that scene, but his anger is so visceral, so real... ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘Like what?’
His mouth is a grim line, his eyes hard, unreadable. And, Christ, do I want to read them now.
‘Congratulations on your fucking marriage. I’m so happy for you both!’
I jump at his profanity, the force of it, and shake my head. The movement is negligible, but it’s all I can manage as I’m transported back seven years to the life his brother offered me. Me and my unborn child. He was my best friend, my rock, offering me everything I could wish for to give my child a stable, loving home. Everything I didn’t have growing up.
‘And what do you know, Alexa?’ His tone is hard, scathing. ‘It’s been three months since Liam died, which means you likely have someone else lined up to take his place by now.’
I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. His insult sends fire through my bloodstream. My ears are ringing with its pounding beat. I force in a breath, two, feel my eyes sting as I stare him down.
Don’t let him win. Don’t sink to his level.
I rise out of my seat and turn my focus to the computer screen, shutting it down. The silence in the room stretches...heavy, loaded...but I don’t trust my voice. Not yet.
And then he moves and he’s standing beside me, his proximity like a drug I can’t resist, can’t get enough of even now.
‘Now I think about it, Lexi...’ His voice is low, and the use of the name he gave me all those years ago is purposely teasing, crushing, cruel. ‘Maybe I’ve come back at just the right time to take on that role.’
I twist on my heel, my hand gliding through the air to make for his cheek—of all the goddamn nerve—but he’s quicker than me. He grabs my wrist a split-second before it collides with his arrogant, self-assured face and I’m panting, the ragged sound the only thing I can hear.
He’s so close, I can feel his breath brush against my forehead, feel the heat of his body through his shirt, the old familiar scent of his cologne invading my senses.
I breathe him in—just a second’s weakness—as my lashes lower and I’m transported back to a time before. A time when I didn’t have to resist this persistent pull, this inherent need, this impulsive ache.
‘Lexi...’
His voice is husky and it grazes over me like sandpaper, calling to the very heart of me. I wet my lips and look up, scared of what I’ll see, hungry for it all the same.
His eyes burn into mine, his desire etched in every hard line of his face. And then his gaze falls to my fingers in his grasp, to the ring still on my finger, and I remember who he is—what this is. I clamp my eyes shut and shake my head, as though that will rid me of him.
‘Don’t touch me.’ I pull my hand from his grasp and back away. ‘Don’t ever touch me again.’
I force my focus onto my desk, shoving papers into my bag and praying he doesn’t spy how my fingers tremble, how my entire body quakes.
‘Why don’t you do us all a favour and disappear off again, Cain?’ I don’t look at him as I say it. I don’t dare. ‘It’s what you do best.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
I still, my hands deep inside my bag as I process what he means. I can feel my pulse beating in my neck, my lips drying up and my throat clamping tight.
I chance a look. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It means I’m here to stay.’
He walks away, over to the window that stretches along one wall of my office, but it does nothing to ease my panic.
‘Stay?’ I fight to keep the tremor out of my voice. ‘Stay where?’
He doesn’t say anything, simply stares out at Dublin’s Liffey River and the bustling Beckett Bridge. It’s as though I’ve lost him to the view as its myriad of lights dance in his darkened gaze and form shadows across his face.