decide was where the two rabbits were to go, and she got the impression that Sev would have preferred to decide that for her as well. On her last visit she had given him a list of all the necessities of feed, bedding and basic medication that were required, and those items were already stored in readiness. The animals would be arriving the following day because Harold’s son, George, could not wait to make a start on his expansion plans. Her former boss had presented her with a gift card and had urged her to stay in touch while trying to control his curiosity about the exact nature of her relationship with Sev. She had ducked the awkward questions and stayed silent about the baby she was carrying.
Sev tucked her into an SUV and drove her to the other end of the estate where an elderly tenant had a Christmas tree farm. Sev took the axe from the old man and assured him that he could manage to fell the tree on his own. By that stage, Amy was already feeling that she had been exposed more to Sev than was good for her. Getting every scrap of feeling she had acquired for him back out of her head and her heart was her biggest ambition.
‘You know, you never talk about your time in foster care,’ Sev remarked, disconcerting her with the intimacy of that comment.
‘There’s not much to say,’ Amy said uncomfortably. ‘At the time I was hurting so much from my mother turning her back on me. I was in three different foster homes, all short term. Nobody was bad to me, but nobody really cared about me either. Of course, I wasn’t willing to let anyone in back then, so I really didn’t give anyone a fair chance until Cordy came back into my life and offered me a home. And she wanted me for me, not for the pay cheque that came with fostering me. I was able to talk to her and forgive myself for the mistakes I had made.’
‘Do you think you can forgive me enough to talk to me yet?’ Sev asked as she trudged behind him over the rough grass separating the trees, choosing to walk to one side below the natural woodland that bounded the field, which meant she was less close to him.
‘It would help if you would stop trying to flirt with me or compliment me,’ Amy responded tightly.
‘Not going to do either,’ Sev breathed without remorse. ‘I did wrong. I apologised but you won’t listen.’
In a sudden rage that came out of nowhere at her, Amy stopped dead and shouted, ‘Why would I want to listen?’
Sev swung round, his lean, hard features set in tough lines. ‘Because I’m trying and you’re not trying at all.’
Amy rolled her eyes back at him. ‘What is there to try for?’ she demanded in frustration. ‘Even if you’d told me the truth from the beginning, we weren’t going to go anywhere anyway. At heart, you’re cold. You don’t think of anyone but yourself or someone like your sister, who’s part of the charmed circle you live in. You don’t live in my world and I’m just a novelty to you. We’ve got nothing in common.’
‘I wasn’t expecting Little Miss Sunshine to be this unforgiving...’ Sev husked.
And that was that. Amy’s arm came up as though she was about to slap him, and he grabbed her off her feet and settled her back against the trunk of an enormous tree. ‘Fight with me, then,’ he invited provocatively. ‘It’s better than the sulky silence.’
‘I do not sulk!’ she flung back at him furiously. ‘And what’s the matter with you? You got what you wanted with my father. You wanted me, you had me as well... Game over, Sev!’
‘Why is it so damned hard for you to accept that I still want you?’ Sev raked down at her angrily, rage firing his dark eyes to brilliance. ‘Because you don’t believe it? Because you’re set on protecting yourself? Or is it the truth that you run away when things get tough? Because if that is the truth about you, I’ll stop chasing you.’
‘You said you didn’t run after women,’ Amy remind him nastily.
That untimely reminder struck Sev like a freight train and he looked down at her, wondering how the hell she lit him up like dynamite ready to explode, because he never lost his temper and he had just lost it. He had her imprisoned