Part of him wanted to, but he reminded himself that at the moment all they’d shared was one night. That was all. People walked away after one night all the time. He didn’t intend to let one night become two nights and two nights become three.
“No.” He curled his fingers into his fist so that he couldn’t be tempted to touch her again.
Her gaze searched his and then she straightened her shoulders and stood up. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t regret what we did. Don’t start examining it and unpicking it. And don’t start worrying about where I might think this is going. I know what last night was. So don’t feel you have to give me explanations, or excuses or, worse, apologies. I’m going back to bed now. With no regrets. And I’d rather you didn’t have any, either.”
She walked away, leaving him to his self-imposed solitude, and he stared after her, seeing her slim curves silhouetted through his shirt and wondering how it could feel so bad when someone had just done exactly what you’d asked them to do.
He’d sent her away, but now he wanted to follow her. He wanted to thaw his frozen heart on her warmth, but he fought the impulse because he knew it was wrong of him to use her as a sanctuary when there was no way in a million years he could live up to her dreams.
If he didn’t care about her, it would have been easier. But he cared. He cared too damn much for his own piece of mind. So he forced himself to stay where he was, his only companions regret, guilt and a whole lot of other emotions he couldn’t begin to unravel.
* * *
Eva lay curled in a ball in the cold bed, staring into the darkness.
She’d contemplated going back to sleep in Lucas’s room, but decided that would be intrusive, because where would he sleep if she was in his bed?
Someone is sleeping in my bed and she’s still there.
She didn’t want to be like Goldilocks, so she’d returned to the room she’d been using as her own.
The bed felt huge, cold and empty, filled with just her and her thoughts.
It had been an incredible night right up until the point she’d found Lucas in his study and he’d shared his secret. And now that secret lay inside her, heavy as stone. It had never once occurred to her that his relationship, his “perfect” marriage, might not have been so perfect.
She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
He was right when he’d said he’d tarnished her dreams. In a way, he had. She’d looked at those photographs, at the depth of his grief, and envied what he’d shared with Sallyanne.
She hadn’t thought to look deeper. She’d thought that once you found the right person, love was simple.
He probably thought she was a dreamy fool.
She thought she was a dreamy fool.
No wonder he shut himself away. No wonder he rejected people’s calls for him to move on. He wasn’t just dealing with the loss of someone he loved, he was dealing with the discovery that something he’d believed in had never existed. She was beginning to understand why he never judged by appearances.
He’d lived it, discovering that what he’d seen on the surface didn’t reflect what lay underneath. It wasn’t just fiction, it was his reality.
And it was no good wishing things were different, or pretending that she was going to be the one to drag him from the past into the present. Maybe she was a dreamy optimist, but she wasn’t stupid. He had a lot to process, and until he did that he wasn’t going to be able to have a relationship with anyone. And the last thing she wanted was to lose her heart to an unavailable man.
She felt a tearing, aching pain in her chest and knew it was already too late for that. She was falling for him, and it was hopeless.
She could cook him delicious food, and make his apartment festive, but she couldn’t do anything about the way he was feeling. Only he could fix that.
But that didn’t stop her wishing she could fix it for him.
Thirteen
You can’t step into the future if you keep one foot in the past.
—Paige
Lucas woke with an aching neck from having slept awkwardly on the sofa.