“You have returned after a long absence,” he said, feeling as if he moved across shards of broken glass, buried mines. As if any wrong move might shatter them both.
He was aware of the tension rising between them and aware that it was not sexual in origin. He knew better than to let down his walls and feel, as he had once allowed himself to do so disastrously in the seductive tropics of Hawaii. Yet he could not seem to block her as he knew he should.
She shifted in her seat and her fingers crept up to her neck, as if she held her own pulse in her hand. Her eyes seemed huge and bruised, somehow, in the candlelight.
“I have not exactly returned, have I?” she said quietly, her gaze mysterious, compelling, more like the sea now than the summer sky. “Not really. Soon it will be as if I never came to this place at all.”
“If that is what you want,” he replied just as quietly, aware of the soft night all around them and the sense of change, of some kind of promise, in the air.
He wanted to see into her. He wanted to know her secrets, finally, and in so doing vanquish the ghost of her that haunted him even now while she sat within reach.
He wanted to reach out, but did not.
Could not.
He would not let himself, because it felt too much like it had so long before in Hawaii, when he had fallen too hard and trusted too much, and he had vowed he would never give into that weakness again. Not even for her.
CHAPTER SIX
“I WANT a great many things,” Bethany said, lulled by the strangest sensation of something almost like peace that hovered between them. It made her wonder. It made her reckless. It tempted her to forget. “But I am finally old enough to understand that not everything I want is good for me.”
If she expected him to smile, or nod in agreement, she was disappointed. He only stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head slightly, dispelling the odd feeling.
“From that I am to gather that it is your marriage you find … What is it?” He affected a total lack of understanding, as if it was perhaps the English she knew very well he spoke fluently that eluded him. She felt it like a slap. “Bad for your health?”
It was Leo at his most patronizing and it reminded her forcibly of the reason why she was here—not to understand what had happened between them, but to put it behind her once and for all.
She sighed, annoyed at herself for her momentary lapse, and busied herself with filling her plate. At least she knew that everything that was offered to her in this place would be excellent. Nothing else would be tolerated. She took a few slices of the chicken, and could not resist a large helping of the creamy risotto.
“No answer?” he asked quietly. He let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Why am I not surprised?”
Bethany straightened her shoulders and took a calming breath as she picked up her fork. “As it happens, I have given the matter some thought,” she said evenly. As if she was unaware he was coiled in his chair, waiting to strike. “I believe that when a marriage diminishes and degrades the people in it—” she began.
He actually laughed then, cutting her off.
“Such strong words,” he taunted her. “You feel degraded, Bethany? I degrade you?” He shook his head, his eyes glittering, as if she had accused him of a terrible crime—as if was not the simple truth.
“You are the one who wanted a discussion, Leo,” she threw back at him, exasperated, and unable to completely repress her reaction to him even under these circumstances. What was the matter with her? “You should have made it clear you meant that discussion to be entirely on your terms, as ever! I can do without your scorn.”
“What you would like to do without is the truth,” he said, all pretense of laughter gone from his hard face. The candles cast his features into harsh angles, forbidding shadows. “Because the truth is that you do not come out the victim in this scenario. The fact that you have cast yourself in that role is one more example of the infantile behavior you claim to have left behind you.”
“You are proving my point,” she said, unable to keep the faint tremor from her voice. Even so, she kept her spine ramrod straight, determined to look strong no matter how she might feel when he ripped into her.
He studied her for a moment and Bethany felt her face heat. Anger, she told herself. It was nothing more than anger, and never mind the twisting ache inside. Never mind the contradictory, baffling urge to reach out to him, to bridge the gap between them, no matter what it cost her.
“Perhaps it is simply that you are too fragile to face up to who you really are,” he said softly. Deliberately.
She let out a small laugh and then put down her fork, no longer able even to pretend to enjoy the food, no matter how perfectly prepared.