Out of the corner of his eye he watched her stare straight ahead as he drove her away from the house she’d loved.
She didn’t even blink.
Roxie didn’t say a word the entire drive to the airport. Her throat had seized. It was too much to hope he’d just drop her in the two-minute car parks right outside the terminal. Of course he didn’t. He parked in the expensive parks, insisted on carrying her bag in and even filled in a luggage tag for her while she checked in.
She was going straight through the security clearance; she couldn’t delay getting away from him. She was about to lose it entirely. She folded her arms tight around herself, gripping her upper arms with her hands, holding all the agony inside.
It hurt to see him so at ease about her leaving. Which was yet more proof it was the right call to have made. She couldn’t believe it when his expression warmed to tease-level as he cupped her face and tilted it up towards him.
Yeah, thank goodness he’d said no to her last night. From this one touch now, she knew she’d never have been able to pull off a last night of nothing but passion. She’d have clung to him, begging for everything he never wanted to give.
He’d meant the phone as a friendly gesture. It was kind of him. But she didn’t want kind or friendly. He was supposed to be her lover. It was supposed to have been once. Only it had been once every which way and then some. And there’d been the fun, the conversation, the laughter, the way he’d held her, that had all led to. something she couldn’t bear to define.
But he was redefining them in a way that was even worse. Concerned and caring, wanting to stay in touch as a friend. It was humiliating when what she really wanted was.
No.
She knew—to her bones—that she couldn’t stay in touch with him. She was leaving this part of her life behind. If she really was going to live light and free, then she had to sever all connection.
‘Your lawyer will be in touch about the sales of all the assets,’ he said quietly. ‘But you know I’ll keep an eye on it for you too.’
She nodded, mustered a slight smile to show her damn gratitude. Her throat was so tight with unshed tears she couldn’t speak.
She looked for one last time into his beautiful almost black eyes. His teasing look gave way to a small smile that sawed through her nerves. She was a total block of wood, couldn’t kiss him back, could barely manage to take the sweetness of his light, gentle caress. Gripped her sleeves even harder to stop herself shattering into a thousand little pieces of nothing.
‘I hope it’s everything you want it to be,’ he whispered.
She barely nodded because now she knew—uselessly—that what she truly wanted was right in front of her. She wanted him—to love her, to want her, to hold her and keep her … But he didn’t want to keep or be kept. And she couldn’t bear the inevitable hurt of his rejection and her loss.
Motionless, she stared up at him. Stared so hard she could no longer focus. Her last sight of him blurred—he was that fuzzy outline she’d first seen in the bathroom that day. She blinked but it didn’t make it better. She couldn’t say a thing, her throat burning hot but, like the rest of her, paralysed.
She heard his deeply drawn breath. Felt his hands hard on her shoulders. ‘Go.’ Forcefully he turned her away. Pushed so she took a stumbling step in the direction of security clearance. Her frozen cold feet automatically took the next step. And the next.
She didn’t turn, didn’t raise a hand as she heard him harshly instruct her that one last time.
‘Go.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE flight lasted a lifetime. The droning engine hurt her head. The air-conditioning left her eyeballs even drier. The chilled blood in her veins made her stiff and cold. After a hell-on-wheels stopover and yet another long, frozen flight they began the descent, except the lights of London stretched for ever. And hard as Roxie tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about Gabe. Surely he’d seen it in her face? In that one moment her heart had been exposed, there for him to take. If he’d asked, she’d have stayed, she’d have literally fallen into his arms. Only he’d told her to go.
So go she did—to all the tourist attractions: Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London, Madame Tussauds … And at the end of her first, miserable week, mad with herself for still feeling wretched, she queued for tickets at Covent Garden to see the Royal Ballet, as she’d dreamed of doing for almost two decades.
The theatre itself was beautiful, the audience was beautiful, the ballerinas beautiful. But Roxie’s heart wasn’t in it. She watched the dancers—the incredibly talented dancers—and hated every second of it. In the interval she walked out through the well-lit foyer, out into the crowded, famous square. And that was when she drew up short, not knowing what the hell she was doing or should do or wanted to do. She was in the middle of a foreign city, utterly alone. Just as she’d thought she’d wanted to be.
Only to find it sucked.
She’d made the most massive mistake.
‘Roxie.’
She turned. No one in this city knew who she was. No one in the world knew where she was. So who was calling out to her?
Okay, now she was seeing ghosts—because there was a guy standing just by the theatre entrance who looked exactly like Gabe. But he couldn’t be a ghost because Gabe wasn’t dead, he was back in New Zealand. So she must be hallucinating. Delayed jet lag was sending her crazy.
It was a pretty good hallucination, though, because now the Gabe-non-ghost was walking, his gaze trained on her. She blinked but he was still there, striding towards her, faster now, until he was almost upon her. And he was in the most gorgeous suit and clutching a glossy red programme.
‘You don’t like the ballet,’ she said when he got within earshot, because what else could she say to this unreal creature?
‘Yeah, but you do.’ He stopped a mere ten centimetres away from her, his expression searching. ‘Why have you walked out halfway through?’
‘I didn’t think it was realistic.’ Although it seemed she’d lost her grip on what was real altogether because here she was talking to a hallucination and, incredibly, it was talking back.
His brows nearly hit his hairline. ‘A girl gets let down by a guy so she dies of a broken heart. Then she comes back as a ghost and protects that guy from other supernatural spurned women. Which bit’s not realistic?’ The corner of his mouth rose in the smallest of grins.
Okay, so now she was sure she was dreaming. ‘You hate ballet, so how come you know the story of Giselle?’
‘Because I’ve sat through three performances already.’ His smile widened to rueful and he stepped just that bit closer.
‘Three?’ Her voice almost failed as she felt the warmth of his breath on her icy skin.
‘I’m sure the woman in the ticket office thinks I’m a stalker. Which I kind of am.’
Roxie stared at him, her mind spinning. He really wasn’t a ghost. He really was here. Oh, Lord, why was he here?
‘So which bit did you think was unrealistic?’ he prompted her.
She was shaking inside, outside, all over. ‘I didn’t like how she died of a broken heart just because that guy let her down,’ she whispered.
‘No, that wasn’t exactly brave of her,’ he agreed softly. ‘What should she have done instead?’
Roxie was still digesting his appearance, so she didn’t answer. She just stared at him some more and tried not to think too closely about why he was here.
‘What would you have done?’ He waited for a while. Then offered an answer himself. ‘Should she have packed her bags and gone adventuring instead?’
Roxie shook her head, spurred into a sturdier response at that. ‘No, she should have confronted him and told him what for.’ That was what she should have done. She should have told him what she really wanted—been honest and to be unafraid of the consequences.
‘Fair enough.’ Gabe’s eyes were fathomless inky pools. ‘But you know, I think you’d find the second half better.’
r /> ‘Why?’ Her throat had seized so tight again she could barely answer, and the trembles were graduating to shudders.
‘Because in that half she proves her strength,’ he answered, still quiet. Still unfathomable. ‘She does everything in her power to protect that guy because she loves him so much. And to be able to love someone that deeply, that passionately, is beautiful. It’s rare and it’s a gift.’
Her heartbeats boomed like cannons. She refused to believe this might be what she wanted it to be. She wanted it too much—she was still too scared to be honest and to be unafraid of the consequences. So she tried to joke, just in case. ‘Are you saying you enjoyed the ballet?’
‘Well,’ he answered seriously, ‘I saw some parallels.’
‘I’m not about to die of a broken heart,’ she said, suddenly indignant. She hated him thinking she was weak.
‘I am so aware of that.’ His grin flashed, even his melt-inducing laugh sounded briefly. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’