Cole stood up and headed over to the fireplace, tossing some logs onto the already roaring fire. Lex saw the devastation in his bleak eyes and her heart contracted.
She felt intensely sad for him. While Joelle had, on the whole, been an indifferent mother, they had known affection when Joelle had remembered. Her father had never been in the picture, and Lex knew nothing more about him than his first name. And Joelle wasn’t even a hundred percent sure about whether she’d remembered the right guy at the right house party.
Cole’s situation with his dad was far more heartrending. He was constantly reminded that his father didn’t want him, and all his life he’d watched his brother have a relationship with their father that he’d been denied, with no explanation. Her heart ached for him.
‘How often did Sam see your mum?’ she asked.
Cole took his time answering her. ‘Once a month, if I remember correctly. Sometimes he spent a week of his school holidays with us.’
That was so sad. Sam had had both his parents while Cole had only had one. ‘Do you know why your dad...?’ She couldn’t find the right phrase to use. Hated him? Neglected him? Cut him out of his life? What type of monster ignored and neglected a child for all of his life?
Cole shook his head. ‘I have no idea. I asked my mum, but she always changed the subject or brushed me off.’ He lifted his hands and linked them behind his head. ‘Not knowing is the killer.’
She instinctively knew what he meant. ‘Because it’s far better to be hurt by a truth than comforted by a lie,’ Lex said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Being truthful, being authentic and knowing the truth, seeing things clearly, is important to me,’ Lex told him. ‘I’m really big on seeing things how they are and not how you want them to be.’
Lex waved her words away, conscious she was talking about herself when they’d been talking about him and his childhood. ‘Do you think you could be the result of an affair your mum had?’
‘It would be an easy explanation except that I am the carbon copy of my father,’ Cole replied, blowing her hypothesis out of the water. Cole shoved both his hands into his hair and tugged. ‘Why are we talking about this? Surely there’s something else we can discuss?’
Lex knew he was done with the heart-to-heart and that she wouldn’t get any more from him tonight. And that was fine. These intense discussions were dangerous. It was one thing to explore his body, to find out what made him groan and gasp, but discovering what made him tick, what circumstances had shaped the person he was, was dangerous.
She couldn’t afford to become emotionally attached to him. That wasn’t something she wanted to do, not when she knew he’d be walking away from her. This was a brief affair, one that would end when they got back to Cape Town.
If they weren’t making love then she had to keep their conversation light, skimming the surface. Lex looked up at him through half-closed lids, an expression she’d seen Joelle use a hundred, a thousand, times. ‘I’ve got an idea...’ she drawled, dropping her voice in an attempt to sound sexy.
Expectation dashed across his face and his eyes flickered with interest. ‘I’m listening...’
She ducked her head so that he couldn’t see a hint of her smile. ‘There’s a freezer in the pantry with some frozen meals. You could take two out and shove them into the microwave to heat.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘You do know what a microwave is, right?’
‘Funny girl,’ he muttered, fighting to hide a smile. He walked over to her, held out his hand and hauled her to her feet.
Then he grimaced. ‘At what temperature and for how long?’
Lex rolled her eyes. ‘Billionaires, useless at everything but making money,’ she teased him.
Cole patted her butt and sent her a satisfied smile. ‘I’m good at two things,’ he informed her. When she raised an eyebrow, he grinned. ‘Making money and making you scream with pleasure.’
She couldn’t argue with that.
The next morning, Lex woke up in the massive empty bed in the biggest of the guest rooms and rolled over, looking for Cole, before remembering that he’d murmured something about...something. Then she’d gone straight back to sleep but, judging by the fact that Cole’s side of the bed was still warm, he couldn’t have been gone for more than ten or fifteen minutes.
She really hoped he was making coffee.
Lex stretched, pointing her toes and flexing her fingers. Despite having had no more than a few hours of sleep—they’d made love three times during the night but had spent even more time kissing, touching and indulging in some very heavy petting as they’d taken a shower before bed—she felt energised and, yes, happy. Content.
Pretty damn wonderful.
She should enjoy every moment of feeling like this—it was a one-time deal. In a couple of days, she would go back to the predictability of her life, consumed by her need to give her sisters the stability she’d never had. When she returned, she’d go back to putting their needs first.
Here, in the mountains, with the snow still falling and the wind howling, it was all about her pleasure, her wants and needs. And Cole, judging from the way he’d made love to her last night, was determined to give her everything she needed...
Sexually, that was.
He couldn’t give her what she craved, what she dreamed about. He’d never be able to make space for her in his life, and space for her sisters, to put her needs first, to be the person she could trust and rely on to be there for her—but that was okay. She was asking a lot and even if he, or any other man, offered, she doubted she’d be brave enough to trust him to do as he promised.