‘Please don’t,’ he said. ‘Elaborate displays of emotion are the last thing I want to deal with right now.’
It wasn’t an unreasonable reaction in the circumstances, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. Ellie’s arms hung uselessly by her sides as she pursed her lips. Yet, why should he accept her comfort or her help when she’d spent weeks pushing him away?
She nodded. ‘Good luck,’ she said quietly, though never had she wanted to kiss him quite so much.
She spent the day trying not to think about what might be happening in France. She told herself that Alek wouldn’t ring and she was right. Every time she glanced at her phone—too often—there were no texts or missed calls and the small screen remained infuriatingly blank. She’d been due to meet Alannah for lunch, but she cancelled—afraid she would end up doing something stupid, like crying. Or even worse, that she would blurt out the whole story. And she couldn’t do that. It wasn’t her story to tell. She’d already broken Alek’s confidence once and to do so again—wittingly this time—would be unforgivable.
She tried to keep herself occupied as best she could. There was a subtle nip to the air, so she slipped on a jacket and walked across a park with leaves showing the distinct bronzed brushstrokes of autumn. She went shopping for food in the little deli she’d discovered, which was hidden unexpectedly in a narrow road behind the smart Knightsbridge shops, and she bought all the things she knew Alek liked best to eat.
But no matter what she did, she couldn’t clear her mind of nagging questions which couldn’t be answered until he arrived home. Though it occurred to her at some point that he might not want to tell her anything. He was naturally secretive and that wouldn’t necessarily have changed. Discovering something about his past wasn’t necessarily going to transform him into someone who was comfortable with disclosure.
She went to bed at around eleven and it was sometime later that she heard the sound of a key in the lock and a door quietly closing. Her throat dried. He was home. She could hear him moving around, as if he didn’t want to wake her, but as the footsteps passed her door she called out to him.
‘Alek.’
The footsteps halted. The floor creaked and there was silence.
‘Alek?’ she said again.
The door opened and a powerful shaft of light slanted across the room to shine on her bed, like a spotlight. She blinked a little in the fierce gleam and sat up, pushing her hair out of her eyes. She tried to search his face, but his eyes were in shadow and all she could see was his powerful body silhouetted against the bright light.
‘Are you okay?’ she said.
‘I didn’t want to wake you.’
‘Won’t you...come in?’ Her voice gave a nervous wobble as she switched on the bedside lamp. ‘And tell me what happened.’
She’d been half expecting him to refuse, to coolly inform her that he’d tell her everything—well, maybe not quite everything—in the morning. That would be much more characteristic of the Alek she knew. But he didn’t. He walked into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, only she noticed he kept his distance—as if ensuring that he was nowhere within touching range. And stupidly—because it wasn’t very appropriate in the circumstances—she found herself wishing she were wearing some provocative little excuse for a nightie, instead of an oversized T-shirt which had nothing but comfort to commend it.
‘So,’ she said nervously. ‘What happened?’
Alek looked at the way she was biting her lip. At the shiny hair spilling over her shoulders and the anxiousness she couldn’t quite keep from her eyes. He thought that she loved him, but he couldn’t be sure. His mouth hardened. How could you tell if a woman really loved you? He had no baseline to work from.
‘We met,’ he said. ‘And after a while he showed me some photos. The first—’ His voice cracked slightly. ‘The first photos I’d ever seen of her.’
She nodded. Swallowed. ‘What were they like?’
He tipped his head and looked up at the ceiling. ‘She was very beautiful—even in the later shots. She had this thick black hair and the most amazing blue eyes.’
‘Like yours, you mean?’
He gave a wry smile as he looked at her again. ‘That’s right. Just like mine.’ It had been beyond strange to see the physical evidence of somebody he’d only ever heard about in the most negative terms. A woman in a cotton dress, glinting at the sun—her face filled with an unmistakable sadness.