AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But the driver’s eyes were fixed calmly on the road as if he was used to his boss carrying women to his car like some caveman. Maybe he was. Maybe what she called an abduction was just an ordinary day to him.
‘You couldn’t stay on the plane.’ His voice was taut. ‘And you could just give in gracefully for once. This has been a very long day.’
The headache that had started on the flight was spreading now and she pressed a thumb against the pain building at the hairline.
‘You’re right. Frankly, I can’t wait for it to end.’
‘Such urgency,’ he murmured. ‘So some things haven’t changed.’
Looking up, she caught the glint in his eyes and felt her belly backflip as heat suffused her face and body, skin prickling with anticipation and need and fear. Fear at how easily her body could betray her, and, despite there being so much more bad to choose from, how stubbornly it continued to remember the infinitesimal amount of good.
And she could remember it all too well.
Each time they had ended up in bed it was supposed to be the last time. But then she would catch sight of him at some function or at a restaurant and it would be all she could think about.
Like that night when she’d met up with some girlfriends at Piatto for dinner.
Trip had been there with his father and, though she hadn’t gone over to talk to him, just knowing he was there had made the restaurant floor feel as if it were on an angle and she’d had to press her chair down into the floor to stop it sliding towards him.
He’d left the restaurant first, but he had been outside, waiting for her just as she had waited for him that first time. She felt her pulse fluttering, remembering the throb of the blood in her veins as they’d walked on opposite sides of the street, not looking at each other but so intensely aware of every step the other took that it had been as if they were joined by an invisible thread.
As they’d turned the corner, he had abruptly crossed the road and she had pulled him against her, the dark impatience in his eyes and the feel of his mouth on hers unleashing that hunger that shivered inside her, a hunger that she should have resisted because she knew the risks, particularly with a man like Trip.
But looking into his eyes, she had been sure he wasn’t pretending. That he felt what she did.
Until he didn’t, and then he’d ended it, and now he only wanted her because she was safe and dull. And because her parents believed in love, the head-over-heels kind that made you act like a fool and risk everything, and because they wanted her to be happy, they had accepted his lies.
They didn’t know he was faking it.
But she did.
Shifting her body towards the car door, she stared helplessly into the fading light. So why did she still want to lean closer to him? To touch, explore, caress, kiss...
She felt flushed with the heat of it, and her voice was scratchy when she replied. ‘Everything’s changed. Except you. You never change. Which is why you’re in the mess you’re in.’
The blue gleam of his gaze made her breath catch.
‘You know what your problem is? It’s all this thinking in absolutes. Everything. Always, never—it’s exhausting. No wonder your parents think you need a break.’
Her shoulders were aching, muscles tensing from the effort of holding in the scream of frustration that was building inside her. Balling her hands, she inched closer to the door. ‘If I’m exhausted it’s because of you, because of this.’
She was lucky. She had a family she loved and who loved her. A job she adored. A small but close group of friends. A beautiful, spacious apartment and enough money to never have to think about money.
So why had she spent so much of her life living in the shadows?
Not all her life. Trip had been sunlight on her face, and she had basked in it greedily, gratefully, even though she knew that sunlight couldn’t be trusted. That looking into it left you blinded and dazed so that you couldn’t see what was right in front of you.
Like with Cameron.
He wasn’t as traffic-stoppingly beautiful as Trip, but he was cool and edgy and popular and she had been flattered by his attention, intoxicated with the entirely new sensation of being one of the in crowd, so that it had only been later that she’d realised he couldn’t be trusted.
By then the damage had been done. She had put her brother in harm’s way, encouraging him to drive them all back to the city even though Cameron had told her weeks earlier that he didn’t own a car. But it hadn’t seemed important until she’d heard the police sirens.
She’d tried to explain, but the fact was the car had been stolen. By the time her father had arrived at the police station, Lucas couldn’t stop shaking and he was crying too hard to answer questions. And the worst part had been that both her parents were so understanding.
No, actually the worst part had been Lucas going to the clinic in Geneva.
Her heart was beating in her throat.
