‘I think it would be,’ Luke agreed. ‘But here’s the thing. I don’t want to.’
‘So what do you want?’ Aurelie whispered.
He stared at her for a long moment, and she saw the conflict in his eyes. Felt it. He didn’t want to want her, but he did. ‘I want to start over,’ he said at last. ‘I want to forget about what happened—or didn’t happen—between us. I want to get to know you properly.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ she joked, but her voice wavered and it fell flat.
‘I’m not sure about anything,’ he admitted with a wry shake of his head. ‘I’m not even sure why I’m saying this.’
‘Ouch. Too much honesty, maybe.’
‘Maybe.’ His gaze rested on her. ‘But I want a second chance. With you. I want you to have a second chance with me.’
A second chance. Not professionally, but personally. So much more dangerous. And so much more desirable. A chance to be real. Aurelie closed her eyes. She didn’t know what to feel, and yet at the same time she felt so much. Too much.
‘The question is,’ Luke asked steadily, ‘is that what you want?’
She opened her eyes. Stared. His hair was still mussed, his suit still rumpled. He had shadows under his eyes and he badly needed to shave. He looked wonderful.
‘Why?’ she finally whispered.
‘Why what?’
‘Why do you want a second chance—with me?’
His mouth twisted. ‘Is it so hard to believe?’
‘You don’t even know me.’
‘I know enough to know I want to know more.’
She felt a tear, a terrible, treacherous tear, tremble on her lash. ‘I would have thought,’ she said in a low voice, ‘that what you know would make you not want to know more.’
‘Oh, Aurelie,’ Luke said quietly, ‘I think I know what’s an act and what’s real.’
‘How can you know that?’ She felt that tear slide coldly down her cheek. ‘I don’t even know that.’
‘Maybe that’s where I come in.’
She prickled instinctively, reached for her rusty armour. ‘You think you can help me? Save me?’
He stilled, went silent for so long Aurelie blinked hard and looked up at him. ‘No,’ he said with a quiet bleakness she didn’t understand. ‘I know I can’t save anyone.’ He smiled, but it still seemed sad. ‘But I can think you’re worth saving. Worth knowing.’
She swallowed, sniffed. ‘So what now?’
‘You answer my question.’ Words thickened in her throat. She didn’t speak. ‘Do you want to try again?’ Luke asked. His gaze remained steady on her, and she found she could not look away. ‘Do you want a second chance, with me?’
She couldn’t speak, not with all the words thick in her throat, tangling on her tongue. Words she was desperate not to say. Yes, but the thought terrifies me. What if you find out more about me and you hate me? What if you hurt me? What if it doesn’t work and I feel emptier and more alone than ever? What if I can’t change?
‘Aurelie,’ Luke said, and it wasn’t a question. It sounded like an affirmation. I know who you are.
Except he didn’t.
He was still gazing at her, still waiting. Aurelie swallowed again, tried to dislodge some of those words. She only came up with one.
‘Yes,’ she said.
CHAPTER SIX
LUKE stared at Aurelie’s pale face, her eyes so wide and blue, that one tear tracking a silvery path down her cheek.
Hell.
He’d come up here to talk to her, to tell her what he’d started out saying, which was that he was sorry for what had happened but they’d keep this whole thing professional and try to avoid each other because clearly that was the safest, sanest thing to do.
Except he’d said something else instead, something totally dangerous and insane. I know enough to know I want to know more. No, he didn’t. He didn’t want to know one more thing about this impossible woman. He wanted to walk away and forget he’d ever met her.
Except that honesty thing? It got him every time. Because he knew, even as he stared at that silver tear-track on her cheek, that he’d been speaking the truth.