The Burlington Manor Affair

Carmen threw him a disappointed look, then turned away again.

“Yes, I know,” he added, “expecting maturity, decency and a modicum of civility was a bit of a long shot, in her case.”

“Too right.”

“I didn’t mean for that to happen, though. You’re too precious to me.”

Carmen’s head jerked back. She seemed surprised by that, but then her face fell.

“Like I said, I knew you two had slept together. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Again, he was astounded. His thoughts raced. It had only happened once, and even he struggled to place it. It had been here at the house, he seemed to recall, and it was a Christmas party. The memory sharpened. His father had spoken to him that afternoon, laying down laws, and he’d gone off the rails. Amanda had been a convenient distraction. Nothing more. The thought that Carmen had seen, that she’d known about it right back then, floored him. It was the last thing in the world he would have wanted.

“I had no idea.” Rex felt guilty. She was hurt. Why was she hurt by a one-night thing? Okay, Amanda had made something out of it, or had attempted to, but the lingering sadness in Carmen’s eyes at that moment was something he didn’t understand. A guarded, assessing look, a disappointed look. Betrayed, even. It’d hurt her back then, and now. Once again he had to force back the physical urge to pull her into his arms. It was a desperate need in him, but her wary expression warned him off.

“I’ll get over it,” she said, overly flippant. “It was just a shock having it thrown in my face right after she was fishing to see if we were—” she paused, as if she was trying to find the right description for their arrangement “—sleeping together, but she does love to tease people.” She gave him another one of her lingering, thoughtful glances. “In fact, the two of you are a good match. Perhaps you should have stuck with her.”

Ouch. Rex supposed he deserved that, but he felt increasingly frustrated. “Stuck with Amanda? I didn’t even want her, she was a distraction.”

“She might have been a distraction to you, but you and I were...close, we’d...kissed.” It came out in a rush, and her depth of feeling on the issue was suddenly stark and apparent, and she sounded as if she was trying not to cry. “Okay, so I was an ingenue, but it was bloody hard, Rex. I really cared about you. I thought we were going to be together, that you’d be my first, but you got with her instead. It broke my stupid teenage heart.”

Rex couldn’t hold himself in check any longer. He acted purely on instinct and crossed to her, taking her into his arms and holding her close against him. She kept her arms folded, remained rigid. Then he kissed the top of her head, and he felt her sob.

“Hush, hush now.” He wrapped her closer still, resting his cheek against her hair. It shocked him how much he hurt for her. It was enough that he couldn’t bear it and wanted it to end immediately.

Then she muttered something into his shoulder.

He looked down at her and put his hand under her chin, making her look at him. Her eyes shone with tears, but she was pouting and looking at him with that resentful glance he knew so well.

“Now I’ve made myself look like even more of an idiot.”

“No, you haven’t.” Something loosened in his chest. The tension, the resistance. It was a relief. Things weren’t perfect, but at least she was talking to him as she normally might.

“I have. I didn’t mean to blurt that out. Now you’re going to have an even bigger ego, knowing that I had a stupid crush on you.”

Rex laughed, because it was crazy. “Jesus, Carmen. This whole thing we’re doing is because we wanted each other—that’s hardly news. The only revelation here is that you knew about my stupid mistake with Amanda. I had no clue you knew. I’d pretty much forgotten it ever happened, to be honest. It was a one-off and I immediately regretted it.”

She listened, but she didn’t look entirely convinced. “What did you mean when you said she was a distraction?”

“I wanted you.”

She continued to stare up at him.

He took a deep breath. “I wanted you, but I couldn’t have you.”

Her eyebrows drew together.

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She didn’t know. Rex had always wondered, but it was obvious now.

Carmen didn’t know.

He moved away, just slightly, but he needed space if he was going to have to tell her. It was hard, because he never spoke about it, not to anyone. He didn’t even want to think about it. He’d cut all ties with his father and even his mother didn’t know why.

Carmen’s eyes flickered, and Rex knew what needed to be said. “It was a stupid thing to do, but I couldn’t have you and you were what I wanted. I thought she’d make me stop thinking about you. It didn’t work.”

He pushed his fingers through his hair, remembering, taken right back to that time. The frustration—the withheld longing for something that was forbidden to him—it was right there, resurrected as it was by the events of the evening. “Dad was watching me all the time. It’d got to the point where I couldn’t even speak to you without him assessing the situation.”