Pride After Her Fall

So she had opened up her heart to him, had thought she understood him, but it was clear she knew nothing at all.

Anger and rage and sorrow all rolled through her in an almighty wave and she thought if it crashed now the emotions would drag her under.

She had to be strong. Stronger than him.

‘What happened to you? Who did this to you?’

He actually flinched as she said the words. He stood up, those big shoulders that held up the world suddenly a little heavier, his expression almost remote.

‘I’ve got a job to do, Lorelei, and relationships have never been my strong suit.’

No, me neither....

She actually felt too stunned to fully process what had happened. It was only when they landed on the tarmac and she spotted the limo that confusion set in.

What was she supposed to do? Was he taking her back to town? To the villa? Oh, Dieu, she couldn’t get into the villa. She gulped a deep, sustaining breath. She needed to calm down. She needed to stop standing around waiting for him to call the shots.

Taxi. She needed a taxi.

Nash said, almost formally, ‘The car is for you. It will take you into town. I’ll take the Veyron.’

For a moment she considered refusing, but what was the point?

‘Ainsi soit-il.’ So be it.

‘The car will take you back to my apartment. You can stay there until you get back on your feet.’

He had to be kidding.

As if anticipating her reaction, he said, ‘You need a roof over your head.’

‘I do not think that is your concern any longer, Mr Blue.’ Her voice was croaky, as if she’d been yelling for a very long time.

‘Let me do this for you,’ he said quietly.

The bastard.

She stepped up to him, looked him in the eye. ‘Why on earth didn’t you just leave me on the doorstep that morning after? If all you wanted was a one-night stand you could have left it there. I didn’t ask for you to take me to Mauritius. But I damn well deserve better than being dumped fifteen minutes after we land.’

It was good to say it, and to say it with some control, but she knew she wasn’t just raging at Nash. She was raging at her dear, feckless father, who had rescued her from her absent mother’s apartment in New York all those years ago, only to neglect her and dump her on his mother, who for all her good intentions had been a difficult and sometimes ferocious taskmaster.

She deserved to be loved and accepted for who she was, not what others expected her to be.

Nash looked her in the eye and said, ‘Yeah, you do.’

It was that resigned acceptance of her anger and his role in her pain that left her with nowhere to go. He was behaving as if it was all inevitable.

As if he didn’t have a choice.

But he did. Couldn’t he see that? Surely he could see that?

She’d fought like a tiger to regain full mobility after her accident, she’d stood by Raymond through his trial and all the scathing publicity, and she’d struggled like a fish in a net to hold on to the villa these past months.

But she couldn’t make this man fight for her.

Turning away, she said softly, ‘Nash, do you have any feelings for me at all?’

‘Lorelei, of course I do.’ He jaw was so rigid it was a wonder he could speak.

She took a deep breath.

‘Bon,’ she said forcefully, and pushed past him. ‘In that case I don’t ever want to see you again.’

She stepped into the limo.

‘Take her wherever she wants to go,’ she heard him say to the driver.

In the car Lorelei blocked the oncoming truckload of pain by opening her cell and regrouping.

She checked her client list for next week and sent off a text to Gina’s mother to bump up her appointment for this afternoon. Work, rules and structure. She had never needed it so much as right now. She sent a text to her solicitor, asking for an appointment, which gave her a vague feeling of asserting a little control over events. Finally she scrolled through her address book, turning over in her mind which one of her friends she could ask for a bed.

In the end she sent a text to Simone. A million miles away in Paris.

Please come. I need you.

Then she closed her eyes and decided the tears that were building inside her really had no place right now. She would hold them until she was alone. And with that she realised for the first time in two years she was once more in complete control of her actions.