Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong - By Nikki Logan Page 0,59

stepped towards him. He stopped her with a hand that wasn’t quite steady.

‘Don’t. You’ve tried to tell me. Several times. I thought I knew better. Thought this was going to be different. That you were worth the effort.’

She didn’t miss his use of the past tense.

‘Dad would have such a field day over this one. Maybe that’s all the Dalton men are good for. Hard sex in empty relationships.’

‘You don’t believe that.’ Her voice was a whisper. The misery of what she was doing overtook her.

‘I’m an archaeologist, Honor. I believe in what I see in front of me. And right now everything is pointing one way.’

‘I can’t be the woman you want, Rob. I don’t have it in me.’

I don’t know how to be that woman.

His eyes were glacial and then he blinked, and when he opened them again they were dead and flat.

‘No. You can’t, can you? Because that would require you to pull your head out of this miserable wallow you’ve made for yourself. Nobody has lost as much as Honor. Nobody hurts quite like Honor. You’ve hidden yourself away here for years, sacrificing to the shrine of lost love, closing yourself off to the people who could help you, rather than have to get on with life in the real world.’ He barrelled onwards over her shocked gasp. ‘And then I come along and—God forbid—try and get inside your cold hard shell and force you to feel something. Only there’s nothing left to feel, as it turns out, because the scars encasing your heart are worse than the ones on your neck.’

Honor couldn’t see him through the tears welling in her eyes but she heard his jaw slam shut at the end of his tirade. Her chest heaved in the silence. When she spoke, it was a tight, arctic croak.

‘Are you done?’

His answer was complete silence. She fought the anger that threatened to explode. ‘I’m sorry that I can’t be what you want. You’ve set a standard for me that I can’t possibly meet. I was far from perfect even before the accident and I know I’m worse now. You were right—this island is how I remember my family. It’s the one place that I can be where I feel in control of my life. It’s predictable and safe and there’s no one here to hurt me. Until you came.’

She heard him hiss through her tears. She wiped at her eyes savagely.

‘You crashed into my island and forced your way into my life. You’ve cracked my ribcage open and spread it wide to examine my heart like some sick autopsy. Only I’m not dead—I’m alive. God knows why I got to live but it’s agony, Rob. Don’t you get that? Living hurts too much.’

‘Then do something with that life, Honor. Make it worth saving. Right now it’s wasted on you. It’s almost an insult to the people you lost.’

She stumbled away from him.

An age seemed to pass before she felt his hands curl around her and turn her into the warmth of his body. The tidal gates opened.

Rob thought his heart had already broken until he watched Honor’s do it in front of him. There was no word for the pain he felt for her. As though his heart had torn clean away from his flesh. Misery and regret thickened his blood.

It hurts too much.

‘Shh...’ He pulled her into his chest and wrapped her in his arms. He stroked the damp hair from her face, gently and reassuringly. It sickened him that he’d done this. It didn’t matter that he was just as hurt. Wasn’t that his job—to take her pain for her? Always? He’d done the one thing he’d told himself he would never do. Hurt this woman.

He’d pushed too hard. She wasn’t ready.

‘It’s okay, Honor. It’s okay.’ He wanted to call her baby, sweetheart, beautiful, but he knew he no longer had the right. Instead, he rocked her slightly where they stood and wished things were different. Sadness washed through him, but his voice, when he finally spoke, was firm and clear. ‘I’ll go. This time tomorrow I’ll be gone and everything will go back to how it was.’ He kissed the top of her head, over and over, stroking all the while.

Her voice was tiny, muffled by his chest. ‘No. It won’t.’

No. It won’t. He gently rocked on the spot and closed his eyes against the pain of lying to her. ‘Yes, it will. You’ll see.’

‘I’ll sleep on the boat tonight.’ He kissed