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‘Do you want to hit me again?’ His thumb stroked the flesh of her inner wrist.
She shook her head, confused.
‘Don’t you?’
‘I don’t know what I want.’
His eyes flared at the unintentionally provocative comment. ‘You’re angry with me.’
‘Do you blame me?’
His lip contorted into something like a half-smile, but it was rich with sardonic mockery.
‘What I don’t understand,’ she continued, ‘is why you’re angry with me?’ Her pulse quickened, her body so close to his, the hand on her wrist too benign to explain the impact his proximity was having.
‘What makes you say that I am angry?’
‘I can tell.’
‘Are you a mind-reader?’
‘Don’t do that,’ she murmured.
‘Do what?’
‘Gaslight me. I know what I feel from you, and it’s anger.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted, though she saw surprise in his features, and something like grudging respect. ‘Fine, I am angry with you too.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of what you have put your family through. Because of how careless and selfish you have been.’
There it was again! A twitch in her fingers, an ache to slap him. Instead, she jerked at her hand, attempting to pull it free, but he held on and so her action had the unintended consequence of bringing her whole body forward, ramming it into his.
She closed her eyes on a husky, terrified groan of surrender.
His nostrils flared. ‘They love you, and you have turned your back on them, no matter the consequences.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t I? Unlike you, I have been around to witness the consequences.’
She shook her head, wanting to argue with him, wanting to tell him that they weren’t even her family anyway, that if they knew the truth, they wouldn’t want her...but how could she begin to explain? Besides, it was a secret she could never tell another soul, for her mother and father’s sake. She had to bear this burden herself—she’d learned her lesson after Daniel.
‘You think you know my family, but you don’t know me, and I have no intention of explaining my innermost thoughts to you. You don’t get to know what I’m feeling. That’s for me, and me alone. But I will tell you this: if I go home, it will complicate everything. It will potentially overshadow Anton’s wedding and ruin my parents’ lives. I’m not joking,’ she responded, when his lips curled once more into that hateful, derisive half-smile.
‘Anton has mentioned your flair for drama,’ he said simply, and then she wanted to slap him more than ever. Again she jerked at her wrist, but when he didn’t release it, she lifted her foot instead and stamped down on his, satisfied because he was barefoot and she still wore her sandals. She saw his immediate pain response, a tightening in his face, but otherwise he didn’t react, and shame at her base instinct quickly followed the satisfaction of having landed another strike against him.
‘Screw you,’ she said angrily, her breath coming in ragged spurts now as she glared up at him, something else entirely overtaking her. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and silently she willed him to kiss her.
‘You are going home, Amelia. There is no sense arguing about it now.’
‘You are insufferable!’ she shouted, shocked by her anger, by her lack of decorum, imagining what her tutors would say if they could see her now, wild and overpowered by rage.
‘Be that as it may, you shall have to learn to suffer me, for the next week at least.’
‘I will swim to shore if you do not turn this boat around.’
