Yeah, that was better.
Gabe frowned as the taxi drove alongside the park; there was something different about Roxie’s place. When the car pulled over he saw the problem clearly. The hedge had been cut so there was a wide path through. He sprinted along it. ‘Roxie? What’s going on?’
He stopped, shocked, as he got to the garden.
‘You’re here sooner than I expected.’ She clattered down the stairs from her studio in crazily high heels and met him with a smile, her hair flicking round her face. Only her eyes weren’t sparkling to match.
‘What the hell’s happened?’ Gabe all but gasped.
She carefully brushed her hair back behind her ears. He saw a long thin, scratch on the back of her hand. ‘The vegetable garden was too big. No potential buyer would want it like that.’
Gabe still couldn’t breathe. ‘Potential buyer?’
She nodded blithely and stepped closer in her pretty dress. ‘I’m selling.’
‘What?’ His heart stopped altogether.
‘It’s the right thing to do.’ She smiled. ‘I should have worked that out sooner.’
He stared back at the neatly turned over, empty soil—every abundant bed now completely cleared. She’d ripped out that entire magnificent garden. It was all gone. ‘Oh, Roxie, what have you done?’
‘Tidied up.’ She laughed as if his reaction was over the top. ‘It’ll be bought by a developer anyway and the place will be skittled.’
‘What?’ Now his heart raced, thudding so hard in his ears he couldn’t be sure what he was hearing—or what he was seeing.
‘It’s okay,’ she reassured, sounding all confident. ‘Take a look at the house.’
He stared at her instead. Because it wasn’t okay. She could smile as much as she liked but she was never going to get him to believe this was okay.
She didn’t fill the silence he left for her. Instead she waited and finally he turned and saw an official notice taped on the door. He’d seen a ton of them in the months post-earthquake. ‘Why have they stickered it?’
‘The foundations have gone,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s sunk already. It could fall down any time.’
He could see the worst spot now, right by the tree. ‘Foundations can be fixed.’
‘Not this time.’
He couldn’t believe this was happening. He couldn’t believe she was acting so calm when he knew, he just knew she was being eaten up inside. He whirled to face her, to look into that too perfectly made-up face. ‘You don’t have to sell it.’ She really didn’t.
‘I can’t afford to fix it.’
He coughed away the tight feeling in his throat. ‘What about insurance?’
She smiled again, that awful smile that was nothing but a meaningless twist to her mouth. ‘There is no insurance, Gabe. We couldn’t afford it. I was only working sporadically because—’
She broke off, but Gabe knew why already. Because her grandfather had been sick and she’d been needed at home with him here.
‘There’s no insurance for the car, the house or the contents and I don’t have any savings.’ She still wore that synthetic smile. ‘We were lucky in the earthquake that there wasn’t much damage. I’ve spent the last year fixing the superficial stuff. I tried to get insurance after but the companies weren’t exactly running to cover any houses then and honestly I still couldn’t afford it. I can’t afford the repairs.’
‘Roxie—’
‘I’m sorry about your tenancy,’ she interrupted him. ‘Not much of a welcome after your trip away. You can’t stay in there tonight.’
‘If I can’t stay there, you’re not staying either,’ he said. He’d take her somewhere with him and work on her until she broke down and let out the agony he was sure was hidden behind her dull eyes.
‘No, I’m not. My flight goes at three p.m. tomorrow.’
‘What?’ Oh, no, no, no. This was worse than anything.
‘I’ve brought my trip forward.’
It was more of a shock than seeing how she’d decimated her beloved garden. ‘What about your job?’
‘I’ve resigned already.’ Still that smile.
‘What about the Blades?’
‘That’s why they have an extra in the squad. They’re used to losing dancers partway through the season.’ Now the smile had the slightest of edges.
What about me? Gabe wasn’t going to ask that. ‘So you’re going to run away?’
‘I’m not running away.’ Finally there was a spark in her eyes—a flash of temper. Good, he wanted more of that honest kind of emotion.
‘I’m getting on with my life,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing here for me any more.’
Okay, maybe he didn’t want that honest. ‘I’m nothing?’
There was a moment. One moment when something else flashed before that damn smile came back, that caricature of Foxy Roxie sass. ‘Not nothing, Gabe, you’ve been an education.’
His head went all funny, his breathing fast and shallow, he couldn’t think properly. She still saw him as nothing but a good-time guy? An education—with his sexual effort and all? ‘I think there’s a bit more to us, Roxie. Maybe you’re too inexperienced to know that.’
She shook her head and added to that sassy smile with a vixen shimmy of her shoulders. ‘I’m not too inexperienced to know that this isn’t anything more than a fling. Neither of us ever wanted anything more.’
The Treehouse wasn’t the only thing with shaky foundations. Gabe’s world was sinking with every word she spoke.
‘I could buy it,’ he said, latching onto the house rather than facing the implications of his tumbling emotions.
‘Please don’t feel like you have to help me.’
‘I don’t. I want the house. I’ve always wanted the house.’ And he wanted what belonged in it too.
She laughed. ‘You don’t want the house now. It’s ruined.’
‘It’s not, it just needs new foundations.’ He saw her stiffen and tried to fight it—he had to break down her damn defences somehow. ‘I’m not doing this out of sympathy, Roxie.’
‘You can’t help yourself, Gabe,’ she said patronizingly, maintaining that bloody smile. ‘You’re a doctor. Helping people is in your blood. It’s so much a part of you, you don’t even realise. But you help those players, you helped your sister. You pulled back from your social life because you were so bothered about hurting someone. You’re a good guy, Gabe. But I’m not going to let you get all chivalrous over this just because you took my virginity. We’re having sex because it’s fun and it’s all we want from each other. You don’t need to do anything more for me, okay?’
How could she see that good in him—more than he deserved—and not want more from him?
‘Don’t try to dictate to me what I can and can’t do,’ he snapped. ‘If I want to buy the house, I’ll buy it.’
Even in the face of his temper she kept her cool, angling her head and looking up at him from beneath those darkened lashes. ‘This is my problem, Gabe, not yours. You’ll get your bond money back.’
‘I don’t care about the bloody bond money.’
She shook her head and laughed. ‘Only you can afford not to care about money.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ His anger mounted—how could she maintain this veneer?