‘That sounds remarkably like someone who has come from nothing and been on the wrong side of those issues.’ She eyed him curiously, glad of the opportunity to set her own personal problems aside for a moment. ‘I thought you and Malachi were millionaires? Family money or something?’
‘You’re changing the subject.’
‘And you’re evading my question,’ she countered.
He contemplated her for a long minute. The band was pulling tighter around her chest with each passing second. So tight that she could barely breathe. Anouk swung around, forcing one leg in front of the other, until she found herself by an exquisitely carved writing desk with a stunning leather inlay.
She reached out to pick up an unusual-looking paperweight as if it could distract her mind, and pretended to herself that her hands weren’t shaking.
‘I’m not changing the subject, I just don’t want to discuss it. I put that chunk of my life behind me a long time ago.’
‘If that were true then you wouldn’t have gone so white in that ballroom that I feared you were about to keel over. Besides, you don’t just lock it away and pretend it doesn’t exist. It informs what you do in later life. It’s why you’re a doctor now.’
She hated that he sounded so logical.
‘You think you know me so well,’ she threw at him caustically.
‘So tell me I’m wrong.’
The worst of it was that they both knew she couldn’t do that. So, instead, she spluttered a little.
‘Because of course, of all people, you’d understand.’
‘More than you’d think.’ His voice was still impossibly even whilst she felt scraped raw.
‘Then you talk.’
‘I’m not the one who is struggling right now.’
It was odd, but the more empathetic he sounded, the more she wanted to throw the damn paperweight at his head. Carefully, she used her free hand to prise it out of her clamped fingers and set it back down before turning around. Her teeth hurt from clenching them so she struggled to loosen her jaw, too.
‘You think you can help me?’ she managed testily.
‘Maybe...’ he shrugged ‘...but more likely just talking about it will allow you to help yourself.’
‘It was a lifetime ago. It’s dead and buried.’ She jutted her chin out stubbornly, hoping her whole body wasn’t shaking as much as she feared it was.
‘I told you, it doesn’t work that way. Don’t underestimate the monsters inside, Anouk. They exist. They’re real. They know where your vulnerable spots are and they know just when to hit you for maximum effect. If you can’t even admit they are there, how will you ever defeat them?’
‘That’s the sort of thing I imagine you say to your patients. Do you really believe that? Have you ever actually practised what you preach, Sol?’
‘I’ve never needed to.’ His voice raked over her skin. ‘I’m fortunate that my life has been...uneventful.’
She narrowed her eyes, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth. Something in her whispered that he wasn’t but he looked so easy, so calm, that she thought she might be wrong. So if he was deceiving her then he had to be one of the most convincing liars in the world.
She wasn’t sure which truth disappointed her the most.
She stared at him, not trusting herself. She hadn’t talked about this in over a decade. The only person who knew the truth—or at least, the sanitised, abridged version—was Saskia.
Solomon Gunn should be the last person in the world she would ever talk to about her past. And yet there was a crazy part of her that wanted to open up and spill out every last truth. Right here, right now.
‘The term is confront to get closure,’ he added nonchalantly.
She wanted to gouge that part of her out with the letter opener lying on the desk behind her. And she hated that she felt this way. So out of control.
‘The term—’ she narrowed her eyes ‘—is sod off.’
He watched her for a moment, his eyes so intense that she had to drop her gaze to his mouth to protect herself from plunging right into them.