‘What’s your damn problem? Most men would think it a fantasy come true, what I’ve told you! Personal, private, on-tap professional sex! Which, I would point out, you’ve been enjoying with me for quite some time! I didn’t hear you complain while we were in bed! But if you think I’ve got boring, darling, well, let me spice it up for you! Because I can do that—with pleasure. Pleasure and a great deal of experience!’
He still had not spoken to her. Only his expression had shown his reaction. Then he’d turned to go. Her voice had screamed after him.
‘Don’t you dare walk out on me! Don’t you bloody dare! Women don’t have to put up with your kind of attitude any more! We are strong, we are independent and we can make our own millions—and we can have sex any damn way we want it, without men like you looking down on us! Half a century of feminism has made us free of men like you and your condemnation!’
He’d stopped then, turned back to look at her. Then he’d spoken to her. His voice flat. Bleak.
‘Half a century of feminism and all you’ve achieved, Madeline, is the oldest profession of all. You debase yourself, and you debase sex. It should be a gift, freely given by each partner, not a commodity to be sold for a cash profit. And if you cannot see that, if you cannot regret what you did, then there can be nothing more between us.’
He’d gone then—walked out of her flat and out of her life.
And now he’d done the same to Celeste. Walked away from her.
Inside, a voice was protesting. Not Celeste—not Celeste! She can’t be like that—she can’t!
Not the woman he’d held in his arms night after night. Not the woman he’d been sharing his life with. A blow landed on his heart. Not the woman he’d wanted to go on sharing his life with.
For the bitterest truth of all was that in the anguished days he’d spent not knowing where she was, one overwhelming realisation had hit him. He did not want to be without her. He wanted her to be with him—stay with him. Make her life with him.
The realisation had shone like a beacon, impossible for him to deny, impossible for him to do anything other than reel from the truth of it.
A beacon that she had extinguished with one fatal utterance.
Pain jagged through him.
He walked on into the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CELESTE SHIVERED AS she stepped out of her front door onto the steps to the pavement. Though she was wearing a warm coat, the winter weather was cold. But it was more than the weather that chilled her. She was cold in her bones. Cold all the way through.
Sometimes, even though she tried desperately—despairingly—to keep them out, memories forced their way into her head, memories of when she had been warm...
The balmy Hawaiian breeze from the ocean, the heat of the day rising up from the hot sand, the sun like a benediction on her.
The memories mocked her. Mocked her just as all her memories mocked her. With cruel, jeering laughter. Mocking her for having dared to think that she could find happiness, that she could escape the past. Walk free of it.
Of course you couldn’t! You were a fool to think you could! A fool to think you could just ignore it, blank it out of your consciousness! A fool to think you could set it aside as though it had never happened—as though you’d never done what you did! A fool to think you could allow yourself to have what you knew from the start must be impossible!
Yet you thought you could have it—you thought you could finally take for yourself the happiness that was barred to you. And all you have achieved is to wound a good man—a man who cared for you and cherished you, a man you deceived by your silence. You betrayed his trust in you.
Remorse filled her—remorse at what she had done to Rafael. At her culpable silence, her self-blinding foolish hope that she could take what he offered her—take the happiness she’d found with him.