Harsh laughter erupted from a place of dark, shuddering pain he thought he’d sealed off for ever.
‘Lucky! You call living with a serial adulterer of a father who didn’t bother to hide his transgressions from his family and a mother who instead of protecting her son tried to take her own life in the most dramatic way possible, lucky?’
CHAPTER TEN
ANA STRUGGLED TO BREATHE. ‘What?’
‘You heard me,’ he rasped, his voice raw and pain-filled.
‘But I thought... Oh, Bastien, I’m so sorry.’ Her chest felt tight, but it had nothing to do with her asthma. All she felt was overwhelming compassion for what Bastien had suffered.
‘Forget it.’ He dismissed her words with a shrug.
She tried to take a breath but only a distressed wheeze emerged.
Bastien’s gaze sharpened. ‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded.
She tried to shake her head but he was already taking her arm. One finger urged her face up to his, where concern was etched.
‘Nothing. I’m fine. When did your mother try to take her own life?’
He dropped his hand. ‘Not now. We need to get back.’
‘Bastien, please talk to me—’
‘Unless you want to get caught in the rain we need to get moving.’
She glanced up at the sky, surprised to notice storm clouds rolling over the lake. Whilst they’d been locked in the past the weather had changed.
She helped him pack their picnic away, despite his terse instruction to let him do it. They returned to the boat in silence, even though she felt his concerned glance more than once.
Placing the basket in the tiny galley, he led her to the single cabin. ‘Stay down here. If the rain hits the journey back might be a little bumpy.’
‘I’ll stay here if you’ll promise me we’ll talk when we get back.’
He blew out an exasperated breath. ‘Oui, we’ll talk,’ he said. And left.
Ana tried to relax, but her thoughts churned. Bastien’s parents had stayed together but the circumstances she’d imagined, the assumptions she’d made, were very far from the truth. Another wave of empathy surged through her.
She headed for the door, but paused and groaned when she caught her image in the mirror beside the bed.
Her skin was pale, her eyes wide pools of anguish. And some time between leaving the château and now her hair had become a tangled web. She thought of repairing the mess, but gave up.
The outward mess she could deal with later. It was the inner mess that terrified her—because she feared the path her heart had taken was fraught with danger.
* * *
Bastien steered the boat alongside the pier, his thoughts grim. What the hell had happened on that hill in Villeneuve? How had he let go of his control so much that he’d spilled the cause of his deepest pain to Ana?
Revealing what his mother’s ultimate rejection had done to him was inexcusable. He’d thought that particular fear was buried deep, unreachable.
But all it had taken was one softly voiced challenge to send him back to that dark, harrowing place.
Jumping onto the pier, he secured the rope with a vicious twist, silently thankful that the production crew were arriving tomorrow. The earlier he wrapped the ad campaign, the earlier he could end this enforced hiatus and return to his life. A life devoid of Ana, devoid of heated looks from sultry chocolate-brown eyes. No more second-guessing the choices he’d made for a life without emotion. A life that stretched out bleak and empty at the thought of Ana not being a part of it...
With a muted curse, he turned. She stood at the top of the steps leading to the galley, one hand lifted to catch her hair as the breeze played with it.
Bastien’s breath strangled in his chest. Just looking at her made his world fracture, threatening to splinter into a million pieces. No matter how much he tried to wrestle back control everything in him wanted to stride over to her, snatch her tiny waist in his hands and devour her lips. Maybe then they’d both forget what he’d let slip on the hillside.