“Are you going to ignore me until I go away?” His voice is smooth, teasing even. I listen to his footsteps as he walks closer, until he’s standing right in front of me.
I look up at him, my expression deliberately insolent, resisting with all my strength, the urge to gawk at how delicious he looks. He’s wearing a suit, and dark one, with a pinstriped blue shirt underneath. The tie is missing, and the first button at the collar is open, exposing the column of his throat. It’s amazing how much I want to reach for him, how much I want to get up and wrap my arms around his waist, press my lips to the warm skin at his neck. For a moment, I’m filled with a strong urge to forget that we’re separated by this ocean of hurt and memories, to imagine instead that we’re still in love, and he’s come home to me, the woman he loves, who would waste no time in showing him how much she’s missed him.
However, that’s not how we are, and that ocean of hurt and memories will never go away. I take a deep breath.
“I didn’t know you were coming back.” I say, dragging my eyes away from him.
“You hoped I wasn’t.”
Could he read my mind? “I just assumed you’d rather be far away than be forced to endure my company.” I accompany the words with a saccharine smile.
He looks amused, and I watch uneasily as he comes closer and drops to an elegant squat in front of me “You’re not wrong.” He states mildly.
He is too close. I swallow, nervous and excited at the same time. “Then why are you here?”
His gray eyes are burning into mine. I feel like I’m being held prisoner, part of me would like nothing more than to escape, but the other part would trade a lot to have him so close for all time. I wait for him to say something in reply to my question.
“Because,” he says softly, his fingers reaching for my hair to move a few locks behind my ear, “There’s also a part of me that wants to be around you.”
I shiver from his touch and move my head until his fingers are no longer touching me, “Aren’t you a glutton for punishment?” My voice is shaking.
His brow rises questioningly, and I almost sigh. Why on earth does he have to be so beautiful? “If I am, then what about you?” he asks, “Nobody forced you to come back here.”
“I already told I didn’t know you’d be here, Jackson.”
“For a long time I couldn’t bear to be.” There is a small smile on his lips as he looks at me. “You ruined this house for me, Olivia. Did you know that? You turned it from a home into a store of painful memories.”
Had the events of seven years ago really affected him that much? It’s hard to think so, considering how easily he had abandoned me. After I left Halcyon, for a long time, I hoped that one day he would show up and tell me that he loved me, that he couldn’t live without me, I hoped for an opportunity to vindicate myself, to heal the love that I thought we had.
But he never came. I went through the worst period of my life alone, and he went on to be a rising star in the business and investment world, eventually conquering it, and multiplying his family fortunes while dating high profile women who appeared with him in society columns.
If he had cared enough about me to abandon Halcyon because of memories of us, then why had he never tried to find me?
“One more reason for you to hate me then,” I say flippantly, dismissing my train of thought. There was no use obsessing about the past. “My offences are many aren't they, if seven years haven’t been long enough to dull them in your memories.”
He laughs, surprising me. “You’re so nonchalant about the past.” He says mildly, “Does it really mean so little to you? or are you just pretending?” His eyes move down to my lips, then back up to hold my eyes again. “That’s why I came back here at all, the thought of you coming to Halcyon as if you don’t care, as if the past means nothing. I had to come and see for myself.”
“And now you’ve seen.” I say, trying not be affected by his nearness. I remove the laptop from my lap and set it on the coffee table by the chair, just to have something to do to keep my hands busy while he’s so close. “The past are just that, past, it means nothing to me, and it shouldn’t mean anything to you either."
He rises to his feet, taking hold of my arms and pulling me up with him. Now we’re standing toe to toe, and it’s definitely much too close for me.
“I know you’re lying.” He says softly.
“No, you want to think I’m lying because it’s so impossible for anyone to get over the unsurpassable Jackson Lockewood. Well guess what, I'm not Lindsay Gorman, and I don’t want anything to do with you.”
My outburst seems to amuse him. “Really?”
“Yes,” I sigh, “I don’t care anymore about what happened in the past. I’ve moved on.”
“That’s the thing,” He says. Why is his voice so soft? "I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want.”
We’re still facing each other, eye to eye. I pour all the indifference I can muster into my expression, and hope that he will back down. He doesn’t. Instead, he keeps looking at me with that small taunting playing on his lips.
“I will.” His hand moves along my arm, his fingers drawing a teasing line down to my wrist, and against all my control, my body trembles.
His lips quirk in a smile of triumph. “See, Olivia, that’s me proving that you’re lying.”