You started it, Rafe. She mouthed the words into the cool darkness. Maybe he had, but she hadn’t exactly beaten him off. She’d been so turned on, and he’d been... She knew that he’d loved it too.
And in the morning a headache would have been the least of her worries. Mimi brushed her fingers lightly over the wood panelling of the door.
‘Thank you.’ She knew he wouldn’t hear the whispered words. Slowly she got to her feet, her socks muffling the sound of her footsteps across the wooden floor in the hall. Then she climbed the stairs and fell fully clothed on to her bed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
RAFE OPENED HIS eyes and closed them again. Sunlight was spilling into the living room, and he felt as if he’d lost the use of his arms. When he tried to move, he realised that he was rolled tightly in the duvet.
Disentangling himself, he sat up. He was going to have to face Mimi. Somehow that seemed just as difficult as if he’d slept with her. But at least he could make sure he wasn’t going to have to do it naked.
He picked his jeans up from the floor and stretched his cramped limbs. Unlocked the door, and then walked towards the sounds of activity coming from the kitchen.
She looked up from the coffee machine. ‘You’re up early.’
Rafe looked at his watch, frowning at the sixpence, which had clearly been falling down on the job lately. Seven o’clock. If he’d realised, he probably would have stayed put on the sofa for another half hour.
‘Coffee?’
‘Yeah. Thanks.’ He eyed her suspiciously. She looked as bright as a daisy. Maybe he’d overestimated how much she’d had to drink last night. ‘Do you have a headache?’
‘No. I haven’t got a headache.’ She reached into the cupboard for a second mug, putting it on to the counter top with a clatter, as if to prove her point.
‘Good.’ Rafe sat down at the kitchen table and waited. This probably wasn’t the time to tell her that it didn’t matter if she was angry with him. Anger, any kind of emotion, in fact, was better than the way they’d parted the last time. And he was suddenly under no illusions. This was another parting.
She walked across to the table, setting a mug of coffee in front of him and sitting down. ‘Last night...’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ The words sprang to his lips by instinct and then he shook his head. ‘Actually, it does.’
She took a deep breath. ‘You were right, last night, and I’m sorry. I was crazy to even contemplate...’
‘I contemplated it too. And it would have been a mistake, for both of us.’
He wanted to tell her that he had loved her, and that maybe he still did, but that was no use because she deserved a lot more than Rafe knew how to give. She deserved someone who could share his feelings openly, who could heal her wounds and make her see herself as Rafe saw her. Beautiful, funny, talented... That was the kind of list that she deserved.
Her gaze met his, and he realised that he wasn’t going to say any of those things. He didn’t trust himself, not after he’d so nearly made the wrong decision last night. It was better to just leave it.
She rubbed her forehead with her fingers. ‘Then we’re done?’
‘Are you okay about that?’ There was nothing else left to say.
She ignored the
question, getting to her feet in a sudden burst of energy. ‘Why don’t you go and take a shower? I’ll make some breakfast.’
It was an undisguised invitation to leave her alone for a while. Rafe needed that time too. As he stood in the shower, wondering whether being able to cry about it would make things any better, it occurred to him that this was the final confirmation that they’d made the right choice. Mimi was downstairs in the kitchen, probably crying into her coffee. And yet going to her was unthinkable, just as he knew that she wouldn’t come to him. When neither of them could even do that, the best they could hope for was a civilised parting and a little closure.
* * *
Last night’s rain had brought another round of injuries with it. Cuts, sprains, a dislocated finger, and a broken arm where a man had fallen out of a tree, trying to rescue a cat. At lunchtime they took advantage of a sudden lull in the stream of calls and parked up by the side of the road where groups of men were digging ditches, using the earth from them to make a barricade to contain the river on this side and protect the village which lay half a mile away.
Mimi watched as Rafe strode over to the men to speak to them. She didn’t join him. It was better to let go a little now, before she had to do it for good this evening, and she was grateful for this opportunity to just relax back into her seat and close her eyes.
Last night had been a turning point. They’d come so close and then drawn back, acknowledging that sleeping together would be a huge mistake. She’d known it, but saying it made it real. She had to say goodbye to the fantasy that they might somehow pick up where they’d left off five years ago, and deal with the reality. She repeated the mantra that she’d developed over the morning. She and Rafe were no good for each other. He would break her heart just as surely now as he had then.
Someone knocked on the car window and she opened her eyes. One of the men who had been digging was standing there, his clothes spattered with mud and rain, his face creased in a smile. Mimi rolled the window down.
‘Come and eat your lunch with me, miss.’ He jerked his head towards a tarpaulin, strung beneath the branches of a tree.