Laura began to shake as anguish gripped every cell of her body. ‘I think I should leave.’
Matt frowned. ‘You don’t have to leave.’
‘Oh, I do.’ Even though she longed to stay.
‘Why?’
‘You don’t have a monopoly on self-preservation, Matt,’ she said, giving him a shaky smile. ‘We want different things, and that’s never going to change, is it?’
His face was blank and it broke her heart. ‘No. Fine. Go.’
‘I’ll send over a list of people I’d recommend to continue the restoration work.’
‘Fine.’
‘Is that all you can say?’
Matt shoved his hands through his hair. ‘What else is there?’
So it was over. It shouldn’t hurt so much. But the pain… The excruciating pain… Laura got to her feet and her legs nearly gave way. Somehow she managed to stand. Somehow she pulled on her clothes, but her fingers felt too thick and were shaking too much to do up her buttons.
‘I know you think you’re better off alone, Matt,’ she said, pulling her shirt tightly around her as if that could somehow stop the cold seeping through her, ‘but you aren’t. No one is. Work won’t keep you warm at night. Work won’t be there for you when you have a bad day or when you’re old and grey. I would.’
Matt shrugged and she wanted to shake him. Thump him. Make him hurt as much as he was making her hurt. Because he must know how she felt about him.
‘I never wanted it to end like this, Laura,’ he said flatly.
Laura’s heart cracked wide open and a wretchedness more devastating than she’d ever known spun through her. ‘Neither did I.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THAT things with Laura had ended was for the best, Matt told himself for the hundredth time in the week since she’d left.
He didn’t miss her prodding at his psyche or her incessant questioning one little bit. Nor did he miss the way those eyes of hers looked at him and seemed to drill right into his soul. And he certainly didn’t miss her. He missed the sex, that was all. Which was absolutely fine because he would get over that eventually.
No. He was glad she’d gone. Thrilled in fact. He couldn’t be happier. The conversation they’d had the night before she’d left had cemented in his mind exactly why he didn’t do relationships and he’d been right to let her leave.
So why was he feeling so out of sorts? Why did he feel as if he were wading through treacle simply to get through the days? Why couldn’t he focus? And why wasn’t this run that he was in the middle of doing anything to relieve the tension in his body?
Undoubtedly it was the abrupt way their fling had ended, Matt decided, his feet thumping along the path that circled the lake. She’d ended it before he’d been ready to let her go, and that irritated him beyond belief. He should have been more persuasive in making her stay. He should have knocked that conversation on the head and simply made love to her until she was too breathless to talk.
If he’d had any sense at all, he thought, his lungs pumping hard enough to burst, he would have avoided getting involved with her in the first place. That would have saved him a whole lot of trouble.
But never mind.
Sooner or later he’d regain the ability to sleep at night.
Sooner or later he’d fall back into the swing of getting Sassania back on its feet.
And sooner or later he’d find someone to take on the work of restoring the country’s monuments. So what if none of the people she’d recommended had been quite right?
It was simply a question of time, that was all.
But what if he didn’t?
The thought slammed into his head and Matt stumbled. What if he never stopped tossing and turning and dreaming of her? What if he never got his focus back? What if she was irreplaceable?
No. That was absurd. He would. He had to. And no one was irreplaceable. Especially not someone who’d been so wrong about everything.