But it was in the past.
It had been a single night of madness. If she hadn’t conceived a baby, they’d have never seen one another again. Right?
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE PULLED AWAY AND even as she did so her body turned on her, berating her from the inside out, shouting at her not to overthink what was happening.
But she’d followed her instincts once before with Theo Trevalyen and she wasn’t sure it hadn’t been a huge mistake. Not the fact that they’d conceived; she already loved the baby they’d made. But sleeping with a man she’d just met? A man who snuck out in the middle of the night without leaving so much as a business card or note?
She spun away from him so he wouldn’t observe the torture on her face, and drew in a deep, shaking breath. It rocked her to the core.
“Imogen…”
She shook her head. “We can’t do that.”
She gripped the railing until her knuckles glowed white.
His eyes were stormy as they took in every detail of her appearance. The hair he’d messed with his impatient fingers, the cheeks that were pink from their passion, the nipples that were hard and erect through the flimsy material of her bikini. The tiny little goose bumps that liberally covered the flesh of her arms.
The way she wouldn’t look at him.
“We can’t do that,” she said again, and he knew she was trying to convince herself as much, if not more, than him.
“You don’t want to?”
She spun around to face him, incredulity in the pout of her lips. “Of course I want to.” She swallowed and shook her head. “But it would be a mistake. We’d both regret it.”
His eyes drew together but he said nothing.
“That night meant nothing to you,” she forced herself to be brutally honest, even when the admission did something strange to her heart. “You didn’t remember me when I came to the bar. I’m nothing to you. I can’t ignore that, Theo. I can’t jump into your bed because it would feel good. I’d never forgive myself.”
A muscle jerked in his cheek as he let her précis of their situation sink in. The truth of his life wasn’t something he wanted to bring up. It was his own grief; his own heartbreak. It would only tarnish the newness of what they were to share the darkness of his past.
“I wasn’t myself back then,” he said after a moment, deciding a Cliff’s Notes version of the truth would have to suffice.
“In what way?” She turned to face him, then wished she hadn’t when his eyes dropped unconsciously to her cleavage. With pink cheeks, she stalked across the terrace and scooped up her towel, wrapping it around her shoulders as she sat down on one of the loungers.
His eyes followed her and then his body did, moving to the seat beside hers.
“Marie and I were together a long time. Our break-up wasn’t exactly clean or amicable.”
Imogen ignored the guilt knotting through her. It did her no credit. After all, what right did she have to envy the woman he’d loved? That he probably still loved?
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, bunching the corners of the towel with her small fists, holding it tight as though that could ward off her pain.
“Don’t be. These things happen.”
“What happened?” She prompted, unable to contain the curiosity that was inside of her.
His expression was grim. “Ultimately, we weren’t suited,” he said, as though that explained everything, when really, it told her nothing. “We should have ended it years earlier. But it was complicated by the fact my mother and her mother are best friends. Marie and I spent a lot of time together growing up and then, one day, we fell in love.” He grimaced. “Or perhaps we fell in love over the years of our childhood. Perhaps we only thought it was love.” He shook his head.
“When we broke up, I was angry. Very angry with her.” His eyes briefly latched to Imogen’s and then he looked away, rubbing a hand over his square jaw. “I thought the best way to get her out of my system was to throw myself into the single life. I did that, and then some.” He grimaced when he saw the look of distaste on Imogen’s pretty face.
“Did it work?” She asked after a moment.
“Better than I’d anticipated.” He reached forward and pressed a palm to Imogen’s knee. “Marie is in my past. I just want you to understand that the way I was when I met you – it was just a brief phase of my life. Drinking like that.”
“And sleeping around?”