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The floor tilted beneath his feet as if he were suffering from vertigo. It was the same feeling as before when she’d told him she loved him in so many words. When she had stripped herself bare of all her protective layers. He knew what it must have cost her to do so, and he had done nothing. Said nothing. Nothing coherent anyway. He had just stood there, watching her try to hold herself together.
His hands clenched into fists and he slammed them against the counter, welcoming the sting of pain because it took the edge off the ache tearing through his chest and splitting his heart.
But what was he supposed to say? Their ‘engagement’ was never about love. Hell, he wasn’t sure he even knew what love was. He understood the concept, but in his family love was expressed primarily through material support. There was financial security on an unimaginable scale but affection, emotional support and that intuitive understanding were absent.
Right up until he’d tricked Lily onto that plane.
She had fought with him, challenged him, comforted him, and been at his side during one of the hardest periods of his entire life. But he hadn’t been prepared for her loving him.
Or for how much he loved her.
And that was when he realised why he was hurting so much. Why he felt sick and split and broken and empty. He loved Lily.
Wanted her, needed her, loved her with an intensity that matched the surge of blood beating from his heart.
Turning, he walked swiftly through the house. The door to the bedroom was open and he strode in, his heart hammering in his throat.
‘Lily, I—’
He stopped. The bedroom was silent and empty. So was the bathroom. So were all the other rooms in the house and the garden. He checked and double-checked, retracing his steps, panic swelling inside him but no amount of searching could change the facts.
Lily was gone. His gaze snagged on something bright and glittering on the bedside table. But she had left the ring.
It was starting to rain. Tugging her jacket around her shoulders, Lily glanced dully up at the clouds, then crossed the street.
She had taken the red-eye from Heathrow to JFK. Nobody had given her a second glance. The steward had come by with the trolley but the effort of choosing, of talking, had overwhelmed her. Instead, she had turned towards the window and wrapped her arms around her waist to stop her from disintegrating and, surprisingly, she had fallen asleep instantly and slept until the early morning light seeped through the window to press against her eyelids.
Waking, she had remembered all of it and her misery had been caustic. In some horrible parody of her flight to Italy, she hadn’t wanted to leave the plane. But she couldn’t stay there for ever, and finally she had got to her feet and made her way down the aisle.
She’d had a momentary wobble as she’d walked through the terminal. It had felt so final, so absolute. The taxi ride back to the city had been a welcome diversion but she’d made the driver drop her off a few streets from her apartment. She’d wanted to set the pace for herself. Not just be driven up and deposited on the pavement.
And it was okay, walking through the quiet, familiar streets with her keys clutched in her hand like a talisman. Just putting one step in front of the other gave her something to focus on, and with each step she was one step closer to home. One step closer to the life she needed to start living now.
As she turned the corner, her feet faltered as she spotted a group of young women weaving their way along the pavement towards her. But they were drunk and, frankly, she was past feeling worried about anyone recognising her. Past feeling anything.
The memory of Trip walking out of the room without so much as a backwards glance made her chest feel as if it were a gaping wound. That love could hurt so much was astonishing, but she couldn’t undo what had been done, and she wouldn’t even if it were an option.
She couldn’t let herself think about that now. It would fade in time, become bearable. And in the meantime she had a career she loved, a family she loved even more, and friends to distract her.
She had reached her street and, picturing her small, cosy apartment, she felt a rush of relief and gratitude. She would be safe there. She could heal and then she would face the world.
‘It’s her—’
‘Lily—’
Glancing up, Lily felt her breath stall. Men with cameras and microphones were uncurling themselves from car seats, staggering to their feet, their eyes hard and flat as they started to run towards her.
Her feet froze and for a moment everything went into slow motion as she stared at them, panic swelling inside her. If she hadn’t been so distracted she might have noticed them, been more prepared, but she wasn’t prepared at all and, before she even had time to think of a Plan B, she found herself surrounded by a pack of paparazzi and reporters shouting questions.
Somewhere beyond the jostling men she heard the roar of an engine and the screech of brakes. Then footsteps, heavy, urgent. There were more of them.
‘No comment,’ she said, holding one hand in front of her face, trying to block out their lenses and their questions as she looked for an exit. But there were too many of them. They were like a dark cloud smothering her.
She blinked into a sudden glare of light. But it wasn’t the flash of a camera, it was sunlight. Breathing out shakily, she saw Trip shouldering his way through the pack. His blue eyes were blazing with a fury that made most of the paparazzi step backwards. Behind him a team of men in dark suits and even darker glasses were creating a human barricade in front of the remaining reporters.
‘Are you okay?’ Trip was by her side, the blaze of anger softening as he stared down at her.
‘What are you doing here?’
