I swear to you on my mother’s life, we have never been emotionally involved. I haven’t been intimate with anyone but you since March.’
My mouth snaps shut as I process the implication before my brain processes another wave of hurt. ‘But you have fucked her.’ The woman who looked like a supermodel. How can I compete with her?
‘Yes, but it was a long time ago.’
‘I don’t know why I asked because it doesn’t matter.’ It shouldn’t matter.
‘You ask because you care. You ask because you’re hurting—’
‘Because you hurt me. You took me for a fool. You lied to me, and I hate you for it.’ My chest heaves as I pant, my nipples still pebbled by the brush of him.
‘If I could take it all back, make it better, I would. But what you saw was smoke and mirrors, not the truth. You have to give me a chance to explain.’
‘I don’t have to do jack shit,’ I grate out, angry with him, angry with myself, and angry with my faithless body. I know it would take nothing to raise my face to his, to kiss him, to have him kiss me. To slide my legs around him as we tousle and tangle, thrashing out the confusion and hurt. But what would that make me?
Weak. Wrong. Faithless. Heartless. No better than him.
‘Get off me.’ I try to wriggle away, to twist from under him because my arousal has been burned away by my anger.
‘I’ll let you go when you listen to me, and when you stop behaving like a brat.’ He presses my wrists flat, his dark hair falling over his brow.
‘This brat that wishes she’d hit you harder back in March!’ I continue to rail at him, shaking my fists to the best of my abilities.
‘You hit me? You made me come off my motorcycle?’ His words are sharp and more than a little ugly, finger manacles tightening.
‘Yeah, sure. I saw you whizz past and launched a purple dildo at your helmet, just for the hell of it. It was four in the morning, you idiot. You crept up on me! You’re lucky it was the dildo I grabbed and not the can of pepper spray.’
‘Then I have to ask. Why were you carrying such a . . . deadly weapon in your bag?’
‘Don’t you laugh. It came in the mail.’
‘It came in the mail?’ As he begins to chuckle, I drop my head back against the tile.
‘Not even a cute. And not like that. It arrived . . . it hit my mailbox. Urgh!’ This is a minefield of innuendo. His pickle might be tickled, but I’m just annoyed. Trying again, I utter the words through barely moving lips. ‘My friend sent it from Australia as a joke. I’d collected the package that day on my way into work.’
‘I suppose I should be grateful she didn’t send you a cricket bat.’
‘I have different feelings on that, obviously.’
‘Ma Rose, there’s nothing obvious about you.’ From harsh words to soft, his smile spreads slow and sweet.
‘Meanwhile, you’re no different from a thousand other men. A million of them. Maybe you do have an agreement. Maybe you have some kind of open relationship. I don’t care. You lied to me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, all traces of his smile and mirth wiped from his face. ‘I never meant to hurt you.’
Isn’t that what they all say?
With one last tiny throb of connection, he releases me, blood rushing back to my wrists. He sits, pressing his back to the wall, his arms draped across his bent knees. Even in the cramped corner between my bedroom and the lounge, he has the bearing of a prince. A prince who has taken liberties where he ought to have not.
‘I should’ve told you before now. I thought . . . I didn’t think it would come to this. I thought I could arrange things so you wouldn’t be hurt. So you wouldn’t think badly of me.’
‘So you wouldn’t have been caught. Caught hurting two women.’ Because after her display earlier, I’m pretty sure Amélie doesn’t know about me.
‘There is only you.’ His head rises, the light spilling from the bedroom, casting his high cheekbones in stark relief. ‘With Amélie, it’s been a business arrangement since the start. The only thing she’ll mourn is my credit card.’
My feckless heart gives a little leap.
‘It’s you I want. I’m done with keeping secrets, and I’m done with feeling like your dirty little secret.’