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‘Why don’t you just say it? Whatever it is that you want to say but aren’t.’
His voice was harsh, too harsh. He knew that even before Lily’s eyes pulled back to his.
As Lily’s forehead creased, he made an impatient sound. ‘I’m disappointed, Lily. It’s not like you to play dumb. In either sense of the word.’
There wasn’t a flicker of reaction on her small, pale face but, as a silence settled between them, her cool grey eyes fixed on his and he saw the truth. She was angry.
‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘You want to talk about what happened earlier? I don’t regret it—’
He shifted back against the cushion, his heartbeat suddenly and unaccountably running wild beneath his ribs because he didn’t want to hear the end of her sentence. Didn’t want to hear her tell him that it was a mistake. Or worse, imply that he was a mistake.
‘That’s lucky.’ He cut her off. ‘Because it’s a little late for regrets.’
She blinked as if she were momentarily blinded by the blindingly obvious then. ‘But it shouldn’t happen again.’
Not happen again? He stared up at her, seeing that moment in the clearing when he’d let the rope drop to his feet, feeling the pulse in her throat leap towards him, each beat, separate and vivid like the first heavy drops of rain from a thundercloud.
‘Any particular reason why not?’
‘You know why,’ she said after a moment, as if she’d needed a breath or two before she could speak. There was another sliver of silence and then she frowned. ‘It’s not what I want.’
‘Not what you want?’ He held her gaze, not seeing her as she was now, pale and stiff and hostile, but as she had been earlier, arching against him beneath the quivering leaves. ‘And what do you want me to say to that? Other than I don’t believe you.’
Her eyes darkened and a flicker of lightning split the irises. ‘I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to listen. For once.’
The ‘for once’ scraped against his skin like a blunt blade.
‘I am listening, and you’re lying.’
She was shaking her head now. ‘Just because someone says something you don’t like doesn’t mean it’s a lie, Trip.’ Her jaw jammed out at an angle that made him want to lean in and fit his mouth to hers, and prove her wrong.
‘My liking or not liking what you’re saying is irrelevant to its veracity, Lily.’
He got to his feet at the same time as she did and now they were inches apart, close enough that he could see her chest rising and falling. See a brightness in her eyes that she wouldn’t share with him.
‘In other words, you don’t care what I want, but then I knew that anyway.’ There was a second of silence. ‘So what happens now? Are you going to try and manipulate me into thinking your way is the only way?’
He clenched his teeth. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Is that who you think I am?’ The thought angered and appalled him. Maybe it did her, because her chin jerked up.
‘No, I don’t but—’
‘So why are we arguing about this?’
‘Because you make assumptions. Back in New York you assumed I’d just go along with what you wanted, what you needed, never mind what I felt, and then when that didn’t work you brought me here and assumed I’d give in. And now you’re assuming that because we had sex, it’s going to happen again.’
He held her gaze.
‘I was assuming it would happen again because we both enjoyed it. Or are you going to lie about that too?’
That caught her off balance. She swayed a little as if she was going to fall into his arms but then her body stiffened.
‘No, I’m not going to lie about that.’
There was a shake to her voice that made the air hiss at the edge of the room. ‘I did enjoy it, and I know it felt like it did before and if we had sex again, it would probably feel the same way. But it’s not the same. None of this is real. Acting like we can just pick up where we left off will just complicate things, and it’s not fair of you to assume that can happen. Because it can’t. Because back then we were honest about what we wanted, and I don’t want to take that truth and mix it up with all these lies.’
‘It’s not all lies—’ he protested.
‘You’re not that man that I waited for after the auction, and I can’t pretend you’re him—’
