‘If she couldn’t trust you, why on earth did she agree to marry you?’ she said, the knowledge that Missy had never understood him, and never appreciated him, making the pain lance through her. Why had she given up so easily? Let him go without a fight? ‘And frankly, holding that one night over you like the Sword of Damocles for the rest of your marriage sounds pretty manipulative to me.’ And not much like the actions of a woman in love. ‘It takes two to make a marriage work and it doesn’t sound as if she was doing her fair share.’
The chime of the church bell broke the pregnant silence in the car.
He raked his fingers through his hair, sweat slicking his brow. ‘We better get in there before we melt.’
‘Yes,’ she said, grateful for the interruption—and the chance to get her emotions back under control.
‘Thanks,’ he said, helping her out of the car, and her heart leapt into her throat. ‘You’
re right, Missy was pretty manipulative, and I guess I was so busy blaming myself, I never saw that before.’
He squeezed her hand as they walked towards the redbrick church building—which looked drab and utilitarian, unlike the brightly dressed congregation hurrying to get inside. As they slipped into the air-conditioned darkness and took seats in the back pew she tugged her hand out of his. But panic continued to claw at her throat and the sweat became clammy as it dried on her skin.
What the hell was she doing here? Letting herself revisit feelings that had nearly destroyed her once and she now knew had the potential to destroy her all over again? She’d assumed those wayward emotions couldn’t trip her up a second time. That after what she’d endured and survived as a teenager, she was far too mature, far too resilient and self-reliant to make the same mistake again.
But the bubble of hope that had lodged under her breastbone told a very different story.
She needed to get away from him, get away from here, before she risked regressing into that wild, needy, insecure girl who had fallen hopelessly in love with Carter Price one warm summer night—and lived to regret it.
* * *
Way to go, Price. What made you shoot your mouth off like that?
It rattled him that he’d told Gina stuff he’d never told another soul. But what had rattled him a whole lot more was her response, and how it had finally lifted the weight he’d carried for so long over the failure of his marriage.
Luckily the pastor had been filled with the holy spirit this morning and the sermon had lasted nearly an hour, giving him time to settle. But as he bowed his head, reciting the Lord’s Prayer from memory, he saw Gina fidgeting with the hymnal. He laid a hand over hers, but she stiffened and drew them away.
Frustration gripped. Why was she so tense and skittish?
After the service, he ushered her into the Fellowship Hall for the superb beverages and snacks the church ladies provided and the polite conversation that always followed—ignoring the glare that said clearer than words, ‘I’d like to leave now.’
While the urge to show her off had been replaced during the never-ending sermon by the burning desire to take her back to his bed and show her a different kind of heaven, he wasn’t going to indulge it.
She meant more to him than just a roll in the hay—and he was sick of pretending that great sex and her commission were all that existed between them. He’d told her about his marriage, and it meant a lot to know she didn’t judge him, the way he’d always judged himself.
He didn’t want her to go hightailing it back to New York. He wanted her to stay in Savannah, to see where this might lead. While he wasn’t laying any bets on the long haul, one thing he’d learned from his hell of a marriage was that you had to be honest about your feelings—and, damn it, he had feelings for Gina. And he knew she had feelings for him too.
Why she refused to admit them, he had no idea, but he intended to find out. Because he was dammed if he was going to let her shut him out any longer.
FOURTEEN
‘I need another shower.’ Gina flung her purse on the bed and yanked the pins out of her hair. Agitation crawled over her skin to add to the clammy layer of sweat. Agitation and something that felt unpleasantly like fear.
They’d hardly spoken on the drive back but she’d sensed his frustration—his usually fluid, graceful movements jerky and tense as he drove home—and she knew his mood wasn’t much better than hers. So she made a Herculean effort to keep a lid on her own temper.
She needed to leave, this afternoon. And she wanted to do it quickly and quietly and as painlessly as possible—which meant for once in her life she needed to avoid making a scene.
Kicking off her shoes, she headed towards the bathroom, but a hard hand gripped her upper arm and swung her round to face him.
‘Don’t you think it’s about time you stopped sulking?’ The surly, condescending tone was too much—even for Hercules. ‘Everyone was real polite, just like I said they would be. And they liked you, just like I knew they would. So I don’t know what’s got you so riled up.’
She wrestled her arm free. ‘Sulking? You think this is sulking? I’m not sulking, I’m so mad at you I could smack you, so I’d strongly advise you keep your hands off me.’
His eyes flared, a dark, dangerous, electric blue, and instead of taking the warning he grasped both her arms and dragged her to him until they were nose to nose. ‘You want to smack me? Honey, I’ve been resisting the urge to put you over my knee since we walked into the house. So don’t tempt me!’
The last thread on her control snapped and then detonated like a firecracker. She struggled against his grip as the fear and panic that had been building all week—every time he touched her as if he cared, every time he held her with too much tenderness, every time he looked at her as if she mattered to him—and had exploded earlier when he’d told her about his marriage, lashed out and took control of her tongue.
‘How dare you pretend that I’m the one in the wrong here? You made me participate in that farce when you knew I didn’t want to. This isn’t a relationship. It’s a fling. That’s what we agreed and now you’re trying to move the goalposts without my consent. I’m not your girlfriend, and I don’t want to be.’