“That was before. You must understand.” Her voice was pleading.
“No matter what happened, you promised me that.”
“I wasn’t in my right mind!” she cried. “I thought, just like when we were in the Summer House, that tonight I’d turned you into Royce with my magical powers.”
Then she stopped speaking for he looked at her like a third eyeball had suddenly popped out of her forehead.
Then he asked incredulously, “Your what?”
She immediately felt a fool (or more of a fool than she already was). She should never have told him that. She closed her eyes slowly and wished she could grab the words and stuff them back in her mouth.
She was tired, no, exhausted, bone weary and, not to mention, frightened out of her mind. She wasn’t thinking clearly, didn’t have her guard up.
This was too much, he was too much.
Apparently, he was her dream man, the one she’d been destined to find; the one who she was fated to be with for five hundred years. He’d tested her fortitude, resolve and moral perspicacity and she’d fallen at the first hurdle by taking his money (a great deal of his money) the third time she’d ever seen him. And for what? A minibus for oldies. If he knew, he’d think she lost her mind, if she ever had one in the first place. He’d likely be disgusted, it was almost better to let him think she’d used it on herself. Considering his history with women, that, at least, was something he’d understand.
“Please let me up,” she pushed against his hands, not able to take a moment more.
“Will you stop fighting me and talk to me, for Christ’s sake?” he exploded. Obviously, he’d reached the end of his tether and her head snapped around to look at him.
“Well I didn’t know!” she cried.
“Know what?”
“That you’d been given a magical potion! I thought, well, I’d grown up with Mags always telling me that there was magic in the air, in the trees, in the rivers, yadda, yadda, yadda and I was dreaming of Royce and Beatrice and I didn’t know. I didn’t know who they were. I thought it was me! I thought I’d brought Royce out in you.”
Colin changed the subject and his voice was lethal when he stated, “You knew it was him and you let him kiss you.”
It was her turn to look to the ceiling and make quick, desperate promises to the goddess for rescue. Then, when no otherworldly aid arrived, she tugged once more at his hands, using her legs as leverage, and she surged up but, unfortunately, he followed her.
“Why did you let him kiss you?” Colin pressed.
She was not going to tell him about her dream lover, that she thought she was creating Royce because she needed to believe. She had no idea what this all meant, to her, to them, and she didn’t trust him enough with that knowledge. It was too close to her heart, she barely knew him, until tonight she didn’t know what he did for a living or that he had a brother. He could have twelve more siblings for all she knew. She knew his body intimately but Colin she barely knew at all. Selling her sexual favours for minibuses and living her life thinking she was destined for another was pure lunacy. He wouldn’t want anything to do with her. He was night and she was day. His parents were posh and hers were weird. His sister was sweet and caring and hers was… well… not (exactly).
They didn’t suit.
She had to guard her heart, or, at the very least, she had to know what this all meant to him.
“What am I to you?” she asked in response to his question.
“Don’t change the subject, Sibyl,” he warned, his voice dangerously smooth.
“You want an answer then you answer my question. I deserve that and you know it. What am I to you now?”
“Why did you take the fifty thousand pounds?”
“Goddess!” she exploded, throwing out her arms. “Can’t you answer a single question?”
He glared at her.
She glared back.
Then she gave up.
“I’m going home,” she declared and turned to leave, tired, sick at heart and wanting nothing but a nice mug of hot cocoa and her mother’s shoulder to cry on. She didn’t even care how pathetic that seemed for a thirty-two year old woman. Luckily, fortune smiled on her (belatedly) and made it so that her mother wasn’t over a thousand miles away but was right downstairs.
She had forgotten, briefly and absentmindedly, how ruthless Colin could be when he wanted something.