life? Because I would really like to know why you abandoned me just when I needed you the most and broke my heart in the process. If it is not too much trouble?
Suddenly her confidence faltered and shuddered to a grinding halt.
Kate swallowed down the huge lump of emotion and regret in her throat that was threatening to overwhelm her. She had sworn three years ago, during that terrible summer after he left, that she would not waste one more tear or sleepless night on Simon Reynolds while her stepdad and her sister needed her to be strong for them.
She could do this. The company needed her to be a total professional and do her job. Simon was just another volunteer working on the company-sponsored rural IT project. That was all.
She was going to show him that she had changed in the past three years. Kate O’Neill was not the push-over he had known at university, who had relied on her extrovert boyfriend to make all the big decisions for them both. The tables had turned. She was the one making the decisions now.
Forcing her head up, she stood up from the table, smiled across to the delegates and lifted her chin, back straight.
Only at that same moment Molly said something to Simon, and they both turned their heads in her direction.
Simon’s gaze met hers, locked and held.
She had always been able to read Simon from those remarkable grey eyes, but at this distance it was not possible— except for a flicker of. What? What was it she saw in that instant? Hurt? Need? Confusion? Surprise and amazement? Remorse?
Kate’s stomach clenched and tied into a tight painful knot under the cold, analytical focus of his stare. Then Simon gave one hard blink and the moment was lost.
With one brief smile and half-bow to the group around him Simon turned towards her and strolled in slow, deliberate steps across the room, as though he owned the hotel, the resort and most of the world around it.
Confident. Strong. Impressive.
Simon Reynolds had been brought up to be a leader amongst men, and it showed in every step that he took—no matter where he was or what he was wearing.
In fact she might have been intimidated by him if it had not been for a few tiny aspects of his new look. The super-smart, casual but expensive preppy clothes his mother had used to buy him in London when he was a student had been replaced by a loose short-sleeved shirt made from the same type of striped fabric she had seen being worn at the airport the previous evening. The faded and darned fabric hung over the scruffiest trousers she had ever seen in her life. The knees were patched with several irregular pieces of fabric in various patterns, which seemed to have been cut out with the same nail scissors he had used to trim his hair. A brown cowhide shoulder bag was slung casually across his chest.
He was unshaven, he was trailing a line of red dust along the floor as he walked, and he looked tastier than hot bread straight from the oven.
Mouth-watering. Hot. Bread.
Perhaps he was more country Sourdough than buttery brioche, but Simon Reynolds still looked just as delicious, and her treacherous heart yearned for a taste.
Her whole body prickled to attention, aware of every move that he made.
Kate sucked in a breath, dropped her gaze, and pretended to gather together her papers on the table, trying to ignore the hot pulsing of the blood in her head as her fingers fumbled and trembled.
Then Simon took another step forward, pausing to greet a delegate on the way, and the air seemed to catch in her lungs in the form of her old nervous cough. The one she had thought she had got rid of.
She couldn’t do it.
She couldn’t talk to him like this in front of the other people in the room. Her emotions were too open and exposed. And her failure to control herself had hit so hard that she knew she would have to escape until she could steady herself.
A minute. That was it. She needed a minute to get her head straight before she went back to work. This time she would be the one running away from him.
Simon watched from the other side of the room as Kate quickly gathered together her paperwork and strolled out onto the hotel terrace, her back straight and her shoulders high with tension.