For a moment she thought he was wavering. Taking a moment to let her words sink in. And maybe that was true—for that moment. But then his jaw pulled so tight that she could see a tic flicking irritably. As though he was angry at himself for even entertaining what she was saying.

‘This isn’t making your case for you, Talia,’ he ground out. ‘Allow me to prove it. I don’t want you. I want a woman I can trust. Whose word I can believe. I don’t want someone who says one thing but then acts a different way.’

‘Where is this coming from?’ she gasped.

But she was afraid she already knew.

He’d opened up to her—finally—when he’d told her about his father. The first time he’d ever really talked in any significant detail about his past. And then he’d received the confirmation of his flight and now he was regretting his moment of perceived weakness.

It wouldn’t matter how much she told him that confiding in her was the ultimate strength, he wouldn’t believe her.

He didn’t trust her. That much was true.

‘I’m leaving tomorrow, Talia, to go back to North Carolina. And Duke’s.’

Not home, she noted joylessly, his words scraping her raw inside. That meant that St Victoria could be his home as well as anywhere else. She opened her mouth to speak but let it close again, resignation pouring through her.

Liam had said that love was about actions, not words. So there was nothing she could say that would ever change his mind about her.

For the first time she felt defeated.

‘I should go,’ she murmured, silently praying for him to ask her to stay.

His expression remained as closed off as ever.

‘I think that would be best.’

Talia jerked her head in a semblance of acknowledgement. She’d lost him, it was impossible to pretend otherwise.

Whatever these last few weeks had been about, it hadn’t been about picking up where they’

d left off. They’d already agreed that at the beginning of his brief trip out here to St Victoria.

The simple fact remained: she’d lost him three years ago.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

‘I ASKED NOT to be disturbed,’ Liam growled without lifting his head as a heavy rap sounded at his office door.

He returned to glowering at his latest set of patient notes—the words swimming before his eyes for the third time in the past post-midnight hour—before the door swung open. He lifted his head furiously.

‘I repeat—’

‘I heard what you said.’ Her voice—the last one he’d ever expected to hear again—cut him off breezily. Almost amused. And his words tailed off.

He wasn’t even sure if he kept breathing.

‘Talia.’

It was a less of a greeting and more of a prayer. At least, that was how it sounded in Liam’s head. The woman he was trying to keep from haunting every last corner of his brain was now standing, in the very real flesh, in his office.

All at once he was aware of a good many things, not least being his uncharacteristically unkempt appearance and his office’s uncommon messy state.

What the hell was she doing in North Carolina?

What the hell was she doing in his office?

He didn’t realise he’d actually voiced the questions aloud—bitten out, if he was honest—until he heard Talia begin to answer them.

Tags: Charlotte Hawkes Romance
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