How could she expect him to understand that she hadn’t been acting?
That just for a moment, when he’d slid the ring onto her finger, everything had felt real and perfect. Just like she’d imagined it would in her fantasies of love.
Her eyes blurred.
Only, of course, it was just as phony as the rest of their relationship. What was more, it had been nothing to do with her.
Her heartbeat froze and, remembering how she had squirmed beneath his fingers, her body opening up to his, she felt suddenly sick.
No wonder he had been able to hold himself back. That had all been just an act too. Another way to demonstrate his power over her. Only that time he’d used her greedy body, not her brother, to prove the point.
‘Think what you want.’ She breathed out shakily. ‘I don’t care.’ Reaching down, she picked up the suitcase. ‘Like you said earlier, we have nothing more to say to each other, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to see David. I owe him that at least—’
She broke off, her breath catching in her throat, and, staring at her pale face, Rollo felt a dull ache of misery beating beneath his anger.
He’d told her there was nothing left to say.
What he’d really meant was that, trapped in the limo with his anger and his memories, he hadn’t known how to say it.
Every time he’d tried to start a sentence it had turned into a minefield—his usual effortless fluency deserting him, every word fraught with possible implications. So he’d done what he always did when faced with doubt and discord. He’d walked away.
Stalking down Madison Avenue towards his offices, he’d tried to clear his mind and focus on the afternoon’s agenda. Only he’d been too wound up, his body vibrating with leftover adrenalin, his brain frenziedly trying to work out how a pitch-perfect lunch had turned into Armageddon.
And when suddenly, incredibly he’d stopped caring about work and started caring about his relationship with Daisy.
He took a step forward.
‘You don’t need to see David,’ he said quietly.
‘Yes, I do.’ She stared at him wildly, her body shuddering, straining for breath. ‘I’ve let him down and he doesn’t even know it.’
The ache in her voice seemed to mirror the ache inside his chest.
‘You haven’t let him down. You saved him.’
‘No, I tried to save him—to make everything right, to make this work with you—only now you’re going to call the police—’
She was babbling, the words tumbling over each other in a torrent so fast that he had to hold up his hand to stop the flow.
‘Wait. Wait.’ He frowned, her breathless panic driving away the last of his anger. ‘I’m not going to call the police. I never was.’
Blood was rushing to his head, joining the clamouring voices telling him not to let her leave.
He took a step closer. ‘I know what I said. How it must have sounded. But I was angry. I don’t like scenes...’
He hesitated, unnerved by this sudden further breach in his defences. He never confided in anyone, and yet this was the second time he’d done so with Daisy in the space of a couple of hours.
‘Look, nothing’s changed. I didn’t come back to end our relationship. I came back to finish our argument. But that’s all it is. An argument. It’s what couples do, isn’t it?’
His heart gave a jolt. Couple was a word he’d consciously avoided his whole adult life. And an argument had always been just something to win. Only winning this time would mean losing Daisy, and he wasn’t prepared to let that happen.
Had he been thinking straight that thought would have shocked him. But he was too distracted by Daisy’s reaction, or rather the lack of it, to care.
She was staring at him, eyes huge, their brownness lost in the stunned black pupils. Then slowly she shook her head.
‘But that’s just it. We’re not a couple. We’re not anything.’ She breathed out unsteadily. ‘I don’t even know who I am half the time, or what’s real and what’s not.’ She met his gaze. ‘And it’s not just me. Earlier, I was upset—’
He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up her hand to stop him. ‘I know it wasn’t rational or fair. But I was. Only you didn’t realise. You thought I was acting.’