Page 57 of The Couple Behind the Headlines

‘I had no idea.’

‘Why would you?’

‘I should have thought.’

‘It was selfish of me to ask you not to go. But anyway, I overreacted.’ He gave her a funny little smile that made her heart squeeze. ‘As you may have guessed, I have a slight issue with rejection.’

‘Why?’

‘People I care about have a habit of leaving me.’ He took a deep breath and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘My mother, all those nannies, and now you …’

Imogen’s breath caught in her throat and her heart skipped a beat. ‘You care about me?’ How much? she was desperate to know, but didn’t dare ask.

‘Of course.’ He smiled and looked so deeply into her eyes that she went dizzy with hope. ‘Which is why I’ve come up with a solution that I think could be workable.’

A solution that could be workable? As his words sank in Imogen blinked and her heart rate slowed right down. The phrase ricocheted around her head and rearranged itself in a dozen different ways. But whichever way she looked at it a workable solution didn’t sound like the answer to all her recently acknowledged dreams and it didn’t sound like the declaration of love she’d secretly been longing for.

Bewilderment and disappointment ripped through her with such force that her knees nearly gave way. ‘Oh?’ she said, because that she was all she could manage.

‘Yes,’ he said, completely unaware of the tumultuous effect his words had had on her if the dazzling smile he gave her was anything to go by. ‘I’ve been thinking about this. You won’t be studying all the time. There are long weekends. Holidays. And I often have to travel to New York on business. We might rack up the air miles and our phone bills would probably be astronomical, but we could make this work.’

For a moment all she could do was stare at him. Helplessly gaze into those gorgeous blue serious eyes as something inside her fractured.

Oh, what an idiot she was. Had she really expected a declaration of undying love? A heart-wrenching profession he couldn’t live without her? How could she be so deluded? Jack might have thought he’d upped his game and presented her with the ideal solution, but really all he was proposing was a fling on equal terms.

Agreeing to it would be the mark of insanity. It would mean having to live with the emotional turmoil of dizzying highs and crushing lows. There’d be the rush of the novelty of it in the beginning, but then gradually when other things began to crop up—as they surely would—and they stopped crossing the Atlantic so often, she’d have to deal with the distressing fizzling out of it and the inevitable agonising end. And she’d be left heartbroken.

As Jack would never be able to give her what she wanted and as she wasn’t prepared to accept anything less than everything, there was nothing to be done, she realised with depressing finality. The only consolation she had was that at least he didn’t know how she felt.

‘So?’ he asked, giving her a smile that looked surprisingly uncertain.

With self-preservation now uppermost in her mind, Imogen took a deep breath and said, ‘No.’

For a second he just blinked at her, as if unable to believe she’d turned him down again. ‘No?’ he echoed, the smile vanishing and his jaw tightening. ‘Why not?’

‘I’m sorry. I just can’t.’

‘I think I deserve a bit more than that, don’t you?’ he said, suddenly looking so aloof that she wished she could box away all her concerns, say yes to his suggestion, and make him smile that gorgeous smile again.

But she ignored the temptation and said coolly, ‘Look, Jack, let’s face it. It’s a nice idea, but it wouldn’t work.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘If we did embark on a long-distance affair, we’d be apart more than we’d be together.’ She paused, then looked him straight in the eye and went for the easy way o

ut. ‘And I don’t know if I could trust you.’

Long seconds of silence passed. ‘What?’ he said softly, his air of detachment vanishing as his expression turned thunderous. ‘What the hell makes you think you couldn’t trust me?’

Imogen forced herself not to flinch at his anger, and hardened her heart. ‘Well, for one thing, you’re not exactly known for your staying power when it comes to relationships.’

‘I’ve never had one,’ he snapped.

‘Precisely.’

‘What’s your point, Imogen?’

‘Do you really think that absence makes the heart grow fonder? Because I don’t. Don’t forget,’ she continued doggedly, ‘I went out with Max for months, Jack, and he was having an affair with my best friend right under my nose. With what you’re suggesting we’d be thousands of miles apart for days on end and that means that there’d be even more of a risk.’

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