‘I didn’t mean to scare you, sorry.’
‘Where the heck have you been?’
The anger in her tone was undeniable and Max’s heart sank. If he’d held out any faint hopes that she might have forgiven him his indiscretion with her, then he knew now that wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t blame her, but still it cut him to think that she was that furious with him. That he’d betrayed her trust so irrevocably.
So much for the friendship truce he’d promised her a week earlier. He had to tackle it head-on, before she could say anything to make him feel worse than he already did.
‘Evie, I’m sorry about the other day. It shouldn’t have happened. It was a serious misstep on my part and one which I can assure you will never happen again.’
‘A misstep?’ She narrowed her eyes at him and his brain whirred.
Was calling it a misstep too flimsy? Dismissing it as less important than it really was?
‘A mistake,’ he stated flatly, thrusting aside the voice that argued it hadn’t felt like a mistake at the time. It had felt natural, and right, as if the two of them fitted together.
What was wrong with him? He felt his face twist into a sneer. Clearly Evie didn’t share his rosy version of events or he wouldn’t have felt it best to stay away until now.
‘A dreadful mistake,’ he emphasised. ‘For which I am entirely to blame.’
‘Oh.’
She sounded less than impressed.
‘Anyway, what’s all this?’ He reached over to prise the long loft-hatch pole from her fingers, hoping in vain to lighten the atmosphere.
‘I was frightened you might be a burglar,’ she snapped coldly, pursing her lips.
‘And you thought you’d come down here and confront them? With a thin stick of wood that would shatter as soon as it made contact with something hard, like a human skull?’
‘It was all I could find quickly.’ She eyed him defiantly.
‘You seriously thought you could cause damage with this thing? You know the house is armed to the nth degree, right?’ he rebuked gently. ‘If I really had been an intruder, you should have stayed upstairs, locked the doors and called the police.’
‘And let them come and get us? No chance,’ spluttered Evie. ‘Although you really need to have a rounders bat or a cricket bat hanging around. That would have been a lot better.’
‘You didn’t think that it might just be me?’ He chanced another attempt at coaxing her out of her fury. ‘It is my house.’
‘Apparently so,’ Evie ground out, furiously refusing to be placated. ‘Yet you abandoned me here.’
‘Abandoned?’ he scoffed. ‘That’s a bit overdramatic, surely?’
‘Abandoned,’ Evie repeated angrily. ‘You beat a hasty retreat to your safe haven of the hospital the minute things got a little...muddied here. It didn’t exactly fit with you dragging me from the security of my family with the claim that my recovery here would be better than it would have been with them.’
Max folded his arms across his chest, ready to argue with her, before realising she had a valid point. Or, more accurately, another valid point. He had wrestled her from her brother’s house claiming he would take care of her and Imogen. And he had left her alone when he’d come on so strong. But he’d assumed that would be what she wanted.
‘I thought you’d prefer some space,’ he managed, less certainly now.
‘You left me here, with no word as to where you were or how long you’d be there. When you’d return here, if you’d return here. I have no one I know around me, and it was just Imogen and I for the last few days. And you think I preferred that?’
She spat the accusation at him as he stood, dumbfounded.
‘You knew I was at the hospital, though. And I asked Edina to make sure you were okay.’
‘Oh, yes, your cleaning lady. Thanks for your concern,’ Evie choked out sarcastically.
Max hesitated. He had been concerned. More than he’d cared to admit. But he’d thought Edina was the most neutral party to check Evie’s welfare.
‘After...what happened, I assumed you’d prefer me not to be around for a while.’