And if she could just make herself believe that, everything would be okay again.
‘And I certainly didn’t sign up for that grilling I got from the ladies at your church who obviously now think we’re madly in love and you’re about to declare your intentions.’ She could feel her anger gaining force and velocity at the memory of the subtly probing interrogation she’d had to endure over iced tea and butter-pecan cookies. ‘So I think it’s probably best that we call it quits and I leave now.’
His fingers went slack, the stricken look shocking her into silence and making her realise how much she’d said. She brushed away the stupid tear that trickled down her cheek, hating herself for giving so much away.
‘Damn, Gina. Where the hell did that come from?’
Inadequacy and panic writhed in her stomach like venomous snakes—she couldn’t let him see, she couldn’t let him know how easily he could hurt her.
‘Nowhere.’ She drew in an unsteady breath, and struggled to regain her composure. If he saw a weakness he’d exploit it—and get even further under her guard. ‘I’m fine. I simply feel this fling has reached its natural conclusion. And I’d like to leave.’
‘Stop lying to me and to yourself,’ he said, the dogged determination in his tone making the fear increase. ‘This stopped being a fling days ago—for both of us. I’m not even sure it was ever just about the sex. Even ten years back, at Hillbrook. And you know it too, or you never would have come to The Standard to give me that dumb apology. What I wanna know is why you’re too damn scared to admit it.’
She stiffened her spine, but couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘There is no why. I’m just not the sort of woman who makes those kinds of attachments. And I never have been.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He circled her arm, stroking the inside of her elbow with his thumb when a shiver ran through her. ‘So how come you’re shaking?’
She drew her arm out of his grasp, rubbed skin suddenly chilled despite the warm sunlight flooding through the window. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, biting into her bottom lip to stop it trembling.
‘Whatever it is, you can tell me.’ He touched his fingers to her cheek but she jerked her head back.
‘No, I can’t. I don’t want to.’ But as soon as she’d said the words, she knew she’d given away too much.
‘Is it because of your old man? Is it because he kicked you out when you were still a kid? I know how that goes—my daddy made me feel like dirt too. It makes it hard to trust people, to trust how you feel.’
‘Don’t psychoanalyse me.’ Her whole body began to tremble but she forced herself
to look him in the eye and keep the emotion, the need, on lockdown, the way she had learned to do with her father. The way she’d learned to do with him. ‘You don’t know anything about my relationship with my father.’
‘Okay, then, why don’t you tell me? Tell me why he kicked you out. What did you do that was so terrible?’
He was standing too close, looking at her in a way that threatened to crash through every last one of her defences. The panic and fear became so huge, the only way to save herself was to hit out. ‘If you must know, I came back from college in the US pregnant with a married man’s child.’
‘What?’ His face went blank with shock—but there was no doubting he’d made the connection, when he raked shaking fingers through his hair and murmured, ‘Oh, hell, Gina, I’m sorry.’
The old misery, the cruel loneliness, the bitter agony of loss and rejection rose up her throat like bile. She swallowed, desperate to push it back down.
She couldn’t bear his sympathy, or his guilt, not now, not ever, so she shut herself away in that place she’d found where she could always be safe, always remain invulnerable—and recited the details as if their baby had died inside someone else. ‘My father insisted I get rid of it. I refused. So I ended up living in a bedsit in Bayswater, working nights in a pub—and discovering that being a grown-up is a lot harder than it looks.’
He cursed under his breath. ‘Why didn’t you contact me? Why didn’t you let me know? I would have helped.’
‘Why would I contact you?’ She put all the bitterness she could into the question to maintain the charade—and bury the hurt deep. ‘You went back to your fiancée. What was there to say? It was a one-night stand.’ Even if she’d tried to delude herself it could have been so much more. ‘And in the end I didn’t need your help. Because, thankfully, I lost the baby.’
It wasn’t a lie, not really, she had been thankful in the end—after all the tears and the soul-searching and the mind-numbing grief. Thankful that she would never get the chance to screw up motherhood, the way she’d managed to screw up everything else.
‘I’d managed to pull my life together in the process and get clear of my father,’ she added, when he didn’t respond. ‘So it was all good.’
‘How could it be good?’ The shock cleared from his eyes to be replaced by hurt and confusion—and temper. ‘If I’d had any idea, I never would’ve gone through with the wedding. You should have told me. I had a right to know.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And why the hell didn’t you tell me now? We’ve been sleeping together for over a week, living in each other’s pockets, and you didn’t think it was worth mentioning?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘I don’t get it,’ he said, the anger edged with disbelief. ‘How could I be so damn wrong about you? I thought we had something going here.’
‘Well, you thought wrong.’