Page 98 of The Bodyguard

“Your father told me to be honest.”

“This is ridiculous…” I turn my head, glance back over my shoulder, although I’m not looking at anything in particular. “Ollie said our father found you in Sweden.”

“Yeah. He did.”

“You went back home?”

I ask that as though I’m surprised, I mean, I had no idea where he’d gone. And I’ve spent all this time pretending I didn’t want to know, didn’t care, but I did. I do. I think I always would have done.

“Sort of,” he sighs again, briefly turning his head away to look out of the French doors.

“Do you trust him? Do you trust my father?”

Jonah looks at me, a slight smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “No. I’m here because I want to be here, not because he told me to come.”

“But, you wouldn’tbehere if he hadn’t tracked you down. You wouldn’t have known where I was…”

His smile widens, and I roll my eyes.

“So why did it take my father coming to you to make you want to find me?”

“I guess he was the push I needed.”

“You know I can’t ever really escape, don’t you? I don’t want to be a part of that family anymore but it doesn’t matter what I want. Me thinking I can escape any of it, it’s nothing more than a charade. Whether I’m back home, living only a couple of miles away, or on the other side of the world, I can’t escape who I am. Whotheyare. And that was the reason why we knew it could never work…”

“I love you, Lena.”

My gaze doesn’t waver. I hold it steady, as does he, I’m not sure either of us even blink for the next couple of seconds.

“I love you.” He gives another shrug. “And sometimes you just have to wade through the shit to get to where you need to be; to get to who you want to be with, because it’s something worth fighting for. And we’ve been through some shit, Lena. And I still can’t get you out of my head, can’t stop thinking about you, and I tried. I tried, I really did.”

I swallow hard, and walk past him, out onto the terrace. I just need a moment. A second. And then I feel him move alongside me; smell his cologne, a heady scent that fills my nostrils, and I close my eyes and remember the first time he kissed me. It’s something I think about a lot.

“I thought moving back home, to Sweden – I thought it would be a good idea.”

I open my eyes and look at him as he rests his forearms on the wrought-iron railings, clasping his hands together as he stares out to sea.

“I thought reconnecting with the place, starting over, somewhere familiar… I thought it would help. I got a couple of chickens, some tomato plants, and for a while it was good. It was okay.” He turns his head to look at me, and he smiles a small smile that still manages to make my heart jump. “I even got to know the neighbours. One in particular, Hanna, her name was. She was –isan artist.”

I feel my stomach lurch, keeping my eyes focused on a boat out in the distance. Just the thought of him with somebody else…

“We spent a bit of time together, the odd dinner, drinks out, walks along the marina. But it was never going to go anywhere.”

I feel his eyes on me, feel them almost burning into me, and I slowly turn my head to meet his gaze. And I want to ask him why. Why was it never going to go anywhere? But I don’t want him to think I care, even if I do. Oh, God, I do!

“It wouldn’t have been fair on her, Lena. Because I knew, deep down, that she was nothing more than a distraction. Someone to take my mind off you, and she didn’t deserve that.”

He drops his gaze again, clasps his hands tighter together, and he takes a long, deep breath.

“Your father looked like a different man. He looked tired, weaker, even. And maybe that’s how he wanted me to see him, I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t trust him. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. But one thing I do know for sure is that when he talked aboutyou, about how scared he was of losing you, I believed him.” His eyes are back on mine, and it’s my turn to take a deep breath. “I believed him, Lena. And whether his motives for asking me to come here, and see you, are genuine or not…” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, because he made me realise how much time I was wasting being away from you.”

“We knew it couldn’t work for a reason, Jonah.”

“Maybe your family were a problem you created, yourself, because you were scared, too.”

I frown. What does he mean by that? “I don’t…”

“Scared of this. Of us. Of it becoming anything. You had so many barriers up when we met, Lena. So many walls, and I know you were hurt…”

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