* * *
‘Hey...’
‘Geroff...’ She could feel someone’s hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her. Mimi swatted it away and rolled over. The sound of breaking glass, and Rafe’s sudden exclamation of surprise, brought her back to wakefulness.
‘Careful...’
‘Yeah, sorry. Didn’t see the glass.’ He was kneeling down next to her.
‘That’s okay. Have you cut yourself?’ The glass must have fallen on to the floor when she fell asleep.
‘Don’t think so.’ Rafe was collecting the larger pieces, picking them up gingerly between his finger and thumb.
‘Well, you will do...’ She huffed at him and sat up. ‘Don’t do that; I’ll get a dustpan and brush.’
She stumbled into the kitchen, blinking when she switched the light on. On an afterthought, she collected up the brandy bottle and a couple more glasses from the cupboard on her way out.
‘Have you taken to drink?’ he teased.
‘No, of course not.’ That smile would drive her to drink if she wasn’t careful. Or something far more dangerous.
‘Watch out...’ He frowned, and Mimi realised that she was about to tread on a piece of glass in just her socks. ‘Sit down, I’ll do it.’
He knelt down, collecting up the glass and brushing the shards out of the carpet, then disappeared for a moment to empty the dustpan into the bin. Mimi picked up the bottle of brandy, pouring a large measure into each glass. Tomorrow was the last of her days off, and so tonight might be the last opportunity she had of talking to Rafe. She had to make it count.
* * *
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’ She came right out with it as soon as he walked back into the sitting room, as if waiting might chip away at her resolve. That was typically Mimi and it had always made him smile.
‘Okay.’ He sat down beside her. ‘What have you been thinking?’
‘I think that I owe you an apology.’
She’d tried to apologise about something that afternoon, after he’d carried her across to the farmhouse, and Rafe had brushed it off. He was as mystified now as he’d been then.
‘You have nothing to apologise for.’
She shook her head, brushing his objections away. ‘You pushed me away, Rafe. That was your fault. But I was too afraid to ask why. I never tried to stop you from going.’
Rafe shook his head dumbly.
‘And that must have looked a lot like a rejection to you.’
Emotion blocked his throat. The way it always had, and probably always would. Rafe took a sip of the brandy. ‘Yeah. It did. But it doesn’t matter... What I really want to know is why?’
She looked at him blankly. ‘Why what?’
‘Whatever gave you the idea that you weren’t good enough?’ She began to frown and Rafe stuck to his guns. ‘I really need you to tell me.’
She took a mouthful of brandy. ‘Okay. If you must know. The guy I went out with before you... After that friend of Charlie’s...’
‘The one you never used to talk about?’
‘Yeah. Graham. He cheated on me. When I found out and confronted him, he said that he couldn’t help it. He had a whole list of things I did wrong...’
‘What? What things?’ Maybe he shouldn’t ask. But he couldn’t believe that any of them were justified.
She turned to him, mortification sparking in her beautiful eyes. ‘He said that I was boring. And that he couldn’t help doing what he did because this other woman was dynamite in bed. Is that what you want to hear?’