Page 235 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

CHAPTER NINE

LATERTIGERWOULDwonder how they got back to the island. He had a vague memory of walking downstairs, of shouldering his way through the crowds of partygoers, but beyond that nothing. Except Sydney’s hand curled around his neck, limply, like a rescued animal.

He had felt a new kind of anger then. Not hot, but cold, cold enough to shatter everything it touched because he wanted to raze cities, wipe out populations, smash a world that could hurt a beautiful young woman and still keep spinning in space.

Remembering that blind flinch, he felt a dark heaviness spill through his chest. The pain he had felt as a child was nothing to this.

But his pain could wait. His anger too.

He slipped off his mask, then hers. ‘Do you want me to get Silvana?’ he said gently as Sydney sat down on the bed, staring past his shoulder, her freckles standing out against the paleness of her face.

She shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’

Except she wasn’t. Even if he hadn’t heard the hollowness in her voice, he knew she wasn’t fine. She looked exhausted and frozen to the bones, and she probably was in that dress. Getting up, he closed the shutters and then the curtains and then he crouched beside her. ‘I think you should get into bed. I can help you undress or I can leave?’

She didn’t answer, which he assumed meant that she wanted him to leave and he was about to stand up when her hand caught his. ‘I don’t want you to go.’

Her shoulder blades looked small and sharp like the wings of a moth as she leaned forward so that he could unbutton the back of her dress. He helped her into the T-shirt he assumed she wore in bed when she slept alone and then he undid her hair. And all the time he was helping her, he talked to her about nothing because he wanted to make it feel normal. Wanted to make her feel safe.

As she slid under the covers, he tucked her in. But she was still shivering.

‘Let me get you something warm to drink.’

‘Could you just stay for a bit?’

He nodded. ‘I can stay. I can stay right here.’ He stretched out beside her, still fully clothed, his head on the pillow beside her. ‘Just close your eyes and try to get some rest. I’m not going anywhere.’

Her chest lifted and fell and then quite suddenly her eyes closed and she was asleep. He had planned on staying awake like some guard dog, but he must have fallen asleep too because he woke with a jolt and thought it was morning. But then he realised the lights were all still on and that Sydney’s eyes were open, her face expressionless and watchful.

‘Did I wake you?’

Shaking her head, she inched up against the pillows. ‘I think I woke you.’

Her fingers were pleating the sheet and his heart felt as if it were going to slam through his ribs, but he had to ask. ‘Did something happen there? Did someone hurt you?’

‘No. No one did anything. It was my fault. I thought it would be okay. It’s been so long, but—’

There was a silence and he could see her trying to marshal her thoughts and he wanted to pull her closer and hold her, but then he remembered how she had felt so limp and diminished when he’d carried her to the boat, and he knew that doing that would be for his benefit, not necessarily hers.

‘You don’t need to talk about it now. You don’t need to talk about it ever.’

‘I want to... It’s been such a long time... I didn’t think it would feel the same, because it was just a bit of fun. The hide and seek, I mean—’

‘But it wasn’t fun for you?’ He knew it hadn’t been, but he was terrified that she would shut down again if he pushed her.

She was shaking her head, shaking everywhere. ‘I used to hide from him when he was really angry. Which was stupid, because I knew it would make him angrier, make him hurt me more.’

A wave of rage streaked through him like lightning. There was an excruciating pain in his chest, as if someone were snapping his ribs apart.

He looked at her still, tense body. Last night, she had helped him face the shame he had felt all his life. She had made him see his father in a different way and it had loosened the knotted ball of fear and distrust and anger so that it was easier to breathe. And all she had done was let him speak.

‘Who hurt you, Sydney?’ he said gently.

Her hands stilled against the sheet and for a moment she didn’t respond. It looked as if she weren’t breathing even, and he knew that she was reluctant to go back there. ‘His name is Noah,’ she said at last. ‘Noah Barker and he was my husband.’

Husband. Tiger stared at her, his heart beating slow and hard in his chest, the air tilting around him. Sydney had been married? ‘But not any more?’

The air in the room seemed to ripple as she shook her head. ‘I left him five years ago, and then I divorced him.’

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