The Secrets She Must Tell - Lucy King Page 0,50

that he was adopted? He’d told her that he didn’t like secrets, but he’d been harbouring a massive one of his own, and on top of everything else that made him a hypocrite. So who else knew? Was she the only one who didn’t? Why hadn’t he wanted to talk about it with her? What was wrong with her? Was it the state of her mental health? Was that why he’d told her he wanted to know everything about her when they’d been talking this morning? She’d seen his interest as a sign their relationship was shifting to another, more intimate level but perhaps he’d just been looking out for Josh by trying to find out how stable she really was?

They had no relationship and no connection, she realised as she stalked into the bedroom, blinking rapidly to ease the prickling in her eyes, and she’d been a fool to even begin to think otherwise. Everything she’d stupidly imagined they’d shared was entirely one-sided. Even this weekend, which had meant so much to her, would now be nothing more than a permanently tarnished memory.

She’d been falling for an illusion, a man who didn’t exist, a man she’d conjured up out of her own imagination because that was what she needed. She’d been delusional, which wasn’t a word she used lightly, and worse, naive. What would someone like Finn with his gorgeous looks and confidence and billions in the bank ever see in a woman like her anyway? How could her judgement still be so off?

Well, no more, she thought grimly, grabbing her suitcase and depositing it on the bed. Enough of the imbalance. Enough of being the pathetic, soppy drip she turned into around him. If she didn’t want to end up being even more hurt, perhaps even irreparably so, she could afford neither.

Nor was she having her recently rediscovered confidence and self-esteem knocked by Finn and his stick-his-head-in-the-sand attitude. She had to protect herself, although how she was going to do that now that they were civilly partnered and therefore stuck with each other and living in close proximity she had no idea. But she’d think of something. She’d have to.

In the meantime there was no way she was hanging around like a punchbag for all the emotions he must be feeling and clearly couldn’t handle. She was packing up and going back to London. Back to her son, who, unlike Finn, did need her. And then Finn would have all the space and time to think that he wanted.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

FINN STOOD AT the window and stared blankly onto the streets of Paris stretching out far below, the silence telling him that Georgie had finally done what he’d needed her to do and in the nick of time. Treachery, hurt and sadness had wound their tendrils along every vein and around every cell, and he felt shattered, broken, as though he was being pummelled to within an inch of his life.

He had to calm down, he told himself desperately, forcing himself to take a deep, shuddering breath and loosen his white-knuckled fists. He had to stop. For the sake of his blood pressure and the woman he’d sent away, who was no doubt cursing him with every breath she took. He couldn’t go on like this, snapping and snarling in a way he thought he’d long since buried. He’d hated that man. He wouldn’t allow himself to regress again.

As he battled to control the pandemonium churning him up inside, he thought too how he hated the way he’d responded to Georgie’s offer of help. How savagely he’d lashed out at her. At the memory of the way in which he’d spoken to her, he inwardly cringed. She’d done nothing to deserve such treatment. All she’d wanted was to help.

And maybe, despite his assertions to the contrary, he needed it. Because he didn’t hold much hope of sorting the turmoil out on his own. He didn’t exactly have a great track record on that front. He’d bottled up how he’d felt about his mother’s death. He’d pushed aside his father’s diagnosis initially with alcohol and sex and, subsequently, work. He’d responded to the discovery of his adoption by being unpleasantly short and rude to anyone who had the misfortune of finding themselves in his vicinity.

What he hadn’t done was talk about it. Any of it. To anyone. He didn’t do talking. He never had done. His father had been the stoical, stiff-upper-lip type, unable to show emotion. Even when Finn’s