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It had been like an oil spill inside his chest, spreading slowly, coating everything in toxic, impenetrable darkness. And he didn’t know what to do with all of those feelings.
But then gazing into Lily’s eyes in the barn yesterday, he’d felt the world steady. And something had changed. All the anger and frustration had just disappeared and he’d found himself relaxing. It had seemed so easy, just talking, and then she’d smiled and he hadn’t been able to breathe because it had never been like that with anyone.
Only then she’d told him that she didn’t know how to do this. As if, to her, being there with him in that sun-soaked barn was an effort.
And even though he was used to being made to feel like an unwanted complication, it had stung. More than stung. Her words had pierced like a blade. His hands balled. He didn’t understand or like this feeling of needing her to like him. It made him conflicted and outgunned because to feel anything other than simple lust was so alien. And pointless too because in his family emotions had rarely been expressed. Even his father’s disappointment had been carefully tempered.
But there was no one there for him to rail against and that was a different kind of pain, but, in the moment, he had wanted to hurt Lily, so he had pushed her to admit her desire.
He sucked in a breath, body tensing as he pictured Lily in that dress with the sunlight behind her, revealing what lay beneath the checked cotton. That she hadn’t known what she was revealing had made it even more erotic.
But she had felt it. Felt the shift in the air, felt that quivering, electric thread between them pull taut so that when she’d reached out and touched his chest it hadn’t surprised him. What had surprised him, shocked him, was what she’d said and the way she had said it. Talking about sex as if it was just something functional, a nuts-and-bolts need to be screwed tight with a wrench.
Which it was, he told himself irritably. And he had wanted to respond, wanted to press his mouth against hers and his hand against that maddening indent in the small of her back, wanted to fuse her body with his. Only then he had realised she was crying.
Because of him.
He had stopped it, and then she had changed again, pushing him away, her face small and pale and breakable as if he were a stranger, a threat...
And that wasn’t fair because, surely, she knew he would never hurt her. Had in fact been trying to do the right thing.
Only now she was acting as if he was the one who had started it. As if being his wife were some kind of life sentence. He got to his feet abruptly and walked swiftly back into the house and up the stairs. Her door was shut, and for a few half seconds he stared at the bland, knotted wood as if that were her answer and then he knocked.
Silence.
He knocked again, more irritably this time because that was who he was, how he was. But there was still no answer, and his anger reared up, full-blooded and unthinking, and he twisted the handle and opened the door.
‘Why the hell do you have to—?’
He stopped. The bedroom was empty. Frowning, he checked the bathroom and the dressing room. Both empty. Heart pounding against his ribs, he stared wildly around the room, his head filling with static and then his gaze narrowed on the window.
Through the glass, he could see a figure in shorts and some kind of top moving determinedly through the grass, and then the land curved away and she disappeared.
Trip felt his pulse accelerate. Was she running or hiding? No matter, he would find her. Not that he’d ever even pursued a woman before.
But then he’d never wanted to.
Lily was walking fast.
Back in her bedroom she had tried reading but every time she’d focused on the page, her mind would turn blank and, before she could stop herself, she’d be right back where she’d started in the barn with the tiled roof, making a fool of herself.
It had been enough to get her moving quietly through her bedroom door and down the stairs. A glimpse of Trip out on the terrace, wine glass in hard, soaking up the sunshine as if nothing were wrong, had sent her spinning away from the villa and across the green grass like a bowling ball.
She had no idea where she was going but just being on the move made her feel calmer. There were horses grazing on the left-hand side of the paddock so she kept to the right, kept moving.
It was her phone that finally stopped her in her tracks.
‘Lily?’ Her father’s voice was so familiar and yet it was still a shock to hear him.
‘Daddy.’
‘Do you have time to talk? I know Mom told you how happy we are, but I just wanted to congratulate you in person.’ He paused. ‘Although you’re probably still fuming with us, aren’t you? I know you must be because I know how independent you are, but Mom and I just wanted you to have some time with Trip. Private time. That’s why you didn’t tell us about the engagement, wasn’t it? Because you hate the drama that goes hand in hand with being my daughter. But you could have told us, you know,’ he added gently. ‘We would have kept your secret.’
Her fingers tightened around the phone. What she hated was having to lie to her parents. To know that she had made them liars too. ‘Of course I’m not angry. And it wasn’t your drama I was worried about.’ That at least was true.
Her father laughed.
‘He certainly knows how to make an entrance. Looks the part, too. In fact I heard yesterday that somebody wants to make a film of what happened to him. Probably be quite the blockbuster. Your mother would certainly go and see it. She’s quite taken with him. I was too, although I was a little surprised. I always thought you’d choose some penniless artist.’
