Kept at the Argentine's Command

He drew her out on her college course, how she was juggling her two worlds, the new flat, how her parents were dealing with it, and soon her hesitant replies grew more fluid. She lost her self-consciousness and began to talk as he’d never really heard Lulu talk before. She didn’t apologise for anything—she just enthused.

He’d missed her so much, and yet he knew the woman in front of him had needed that time.

‘You haven’t been seeing anyone since you got back?’ With difficulty he kept the question neutral.

‘I—I tried. I had lunch with a guy on my course.’ She looked up. ‘He’s nice.’

‘Nice?’ Alejandro struggled with that concept and lost. He inhaled. ‘How about me? What am I?’

‘You’re you,’ she said in a quiet voice, ‘and you haven’t said what you thought of the show.’

‘You performed solo.’

‘Only under duress—but, yes, I did.’ She moistened her lips. ‘Nothing else has changed, Alejandro. I’m still seeing my therapist. I still sometimes can’t leave the flat. On my scale I’m doing well, but my scale is much smaller than yours.’

He frowned, but was careful to keep his voice level. ‘In what way?’

‘When I rang you about not being pregnant you were collecting a trophy from the Prince of Wales!’

He shook his head slightly. ‘And…?’

‘That’s your life. You’re out there on the world stage and I’m… I’m on stage at L’Oiseau Bleu, still trying not to lose my lunch.’

He fingered the stem of his untouched champagne glass, his frustration building. ‘I never hung our relationship on the idea that you would get better, Lulu,’ he said slowly, choosing his words carefully, ‘but I think you did.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think it’s a convenient excuse for you. If you weren’t “sick”, as you call it, what other excuse would you use to not be with me?’

‘I’m not making excuses.’ She shifted in her seat, very pale now. Her mouth quivered.

‘You have a kind of agoraphobia, and yet you climb on stage with the other Bluebirds every night of the week. You do it because it means so much to you. Yet you won’t take the chance to have a relationship with me because I’m on the world stage? As far as I can see, Lulu, they’re both stages. You choose which one you want to stand on.’

She was breathing fast. ‘You’re the one who won’t accept me as I am.’

Alejandro held her eyes with his. He looked so incredibly calm, when she was breaking into a million pieces.

She willed him to tell her he did accept her. That he would move heaven and earth to be with her. And suddenly she was angry with him.

What right had he to do this to her? He should have left her alone. Instead he’d dragged her to dinner just to flay her alive.

‘Can I give you an opinion you’re not going to like?’

‘No,’ she said, in a small, tense voice.

‘I think you’ve used your phobia in the past to keep men at arm’s distance. I don’t think you’ve allowed yourself to accept how truly frightening living with your father was.’

Lulu opened her mouth to disagree, to tell him he was way off base, only…

‘You don’t want to find yourself in that situation again, so somewhere inside yourself you’re still that little girl, hiding away.’

She sat very still, as if he’d opened up Pandora’s Box and what had jumped out was eyeing her. She found she couldn’t move.

When he spoke again his voice had deepened. ‘What I want to know is why me?’

She inhaled his warm, musky male scent and the answer was there before she’d even thought about it. Because the moment I clapped eyes on you the backs of my knees went and that had never happened to me before.

But that wasn’t the only reason.