He froze at that, a frown creasing his brow, bewilderment flickering across his face. ‘Nowyou want to leave?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s no reason not to,’ I said, holding at bay all the arguments that countered this. ‘Thanks to you, the press has retreated. We’ve expelled the lust from our system and sorted out our differences, which bodes well for future encounters. There are things back home I need to be getting on with and I have a job to return to, not to mention a pharmacy to visit.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘I thought we were on the same page but we clearly aren’t. So I need to go.’
‘I’d like you to stay.’
Well, that was just tough, I thought with a firm shake of my head, as much to convince myself of my resolve as him. ‘This fling of ours has been a lot of fun, Nick, but it’s over.’
‘It isn’t a fling,’ he said, the intensity in his gaze for some reason triggering flutters in my stomach and accelerating my pulse. ‘At least not for me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m in love with you.’
In response to Nick’s startling declaration, my heart gave a great lurch and then began to pound, the only sound in an otherwise dead silent room.
‘What did you say?’
‘You heard. I’m in love with you.’
I frowned, confusion lancing through me. What on earth was he talking about? Had the hot blazing sun yesterday gone to his head?
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said, even more at sea than I’d been fifteen minutes ago. ‘Why would you say such a thing?’
‘Because it’s true.’
‘After two days?’
‘No, Millie. I’ve been in love with you for years. Probably in some shape or form ever since you flung your fists around in my defence as a fearless and feisty eleven-year-old.’
What? ‘Years?’ I echoed faintly. ‘But you’ve been paving the way for someone else.’
‘Someone else?’
‘When we were talking about the brevity of your relationships and I asked you why, if you didn’t have a problem with commitment, you didn’t seek something more, you said you were working on it.’
‘Yes. But not someone else. You. I’ve been working on you. Last night, you asked me what the one thing I wanted but didn’t have was,’ he said, the steadiness of his voice and his air of absolute calm a complete contrast to my bewildered thoughts. ‘Well, it’s you. The reason I’ve never committed to anyone is because the only person I want to commit to is you. I want to marry you, Millie. I want to have a family with you. I want everything with you. You asked me once where I saw myself in five years’ time. I see myself with you. With a child that we may or may not have already created. Maybe two. What am I afraid of? That it’ll never happen.’
He stopped, clearly waiting for some kind of response from me but I didn’t have one. My mind had gone blank. I didn’t know what to say. I could scarcely breathe. How on earth could he be in love with me? It made no sense at all. He had to be joking. But he didn’t look as if he were joking. He was as serious as I’d ever seen him and as it hit me that he really believed what he as saying, deep inside I could feel the stirrings of panic.
‘I think you’re confusing love with lust,’ I said, my stomach beginning to churn violently.
‘Believe me, I am not. I know the difference. I’ve done things for you it wouldn’t even occur to me to do for anyone else. I’ve pulled you out of bars when it was anything but convenient. I’ve looked out for you and not just because your brother asked me to when he left for the States. I offered you that money not out of pity or charity but because I couldn’t stand the thought of you suffering any more than you already had. You pointed out that whenever I walk into a bar I look around as if in search of someone. That someone is you. Your welfare is all that’s ever mattered to me. That’s why I came to pick you up on Zanzibar. That’s why I shut down the press. I did all of it for you. Only you.’
‘But you find me chaotic and disruptive,’ I said, every bone in my body, every stunned cell in my brain rejecting what he was saying.
‘And beautiful and strong and brilliant. I always have. Even when you were telling me I was beneath you and throwing my money back at me. I’ve been trying to tell you how I feel about you, to show you, and I hoped I’d have more time, but if you’re really going to leave then I’m done with subtlety. I’m done hiding. We’ve wasted too much time already and after the last twenty-four hours, I don’t think I could stand a return to the way things were before. I know you have a problem trusting people. I know you’re afraid of being let down. I know you doubt people’s motivations, but you can trust mine and you can trust me. I will never let you down. Let me love you. Love me back.’
This was all too much. The pressure bearing down on me was crushing the breath from my lungs and draining the blood from my head. My defences were under such heavy assault they could buckle at any moment, but for now they were still intact, thank God, and I had to take strength from that. I had to use them to quash my weaknesses, to bury my vulnerabilities and above all to protect my heart.
‘I can’t,’ I said, suddenly seeing things very calmly and very clearly.