Page 39 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

He was still laughing while he washed off in the sauna bucket, dressed hastily and then raced her back to the house in the fading daylight—more than ready to prove his point all over again.

CHAPTER NINE

FOURDAYSAFTERshe and Logan had started ice swimming each morning, Cara sat at the kitchen table—spooning down some yoghurt and fruit—and stared at the note she’d found on the counter when she’d woken up alone.

Had to go out. Back later.

L

She swallowed down the bubble of disappointment and irritation. And the dumb ache in her throat.

Why hadn’t he mentioned he was heading out when he’d woken her up just before dawn to make slow luxurious love to her while she was barely awake? She might have liked to go with him. And where exactly had he gone when the nearest town was Saariselkä—which had to be at least fifty miles away by her reckoning—and she knew he never went there?

Curiosity, and boredom, were the only reasons she would miss him today, she told herself. That and the fact she could not ice swim alone, something she had become addicted to in the last four days.

She folded the note and stuffed it into the pocket of her robe... Or ratherhisrobe. Her body was still humming from their session before dawn, her nerve-endings tingling with awareness and that reckless passion—that unquenchable fire—that he could ignite so easily. Her frown deepened. Had he woken her deliberately, to exhaust her, so that she would be fast asleep again when he sneaked off for the day?

She swore. A curse word her mammy would have washed her mouth out with soap for using echoed off the granite surfaces.

Of course, he had. Which could only mean one thing. He still didn’t trust her—not completely. Not enough to let her accompany him wherever he had gone today.

The hollow feeling of disappointment—that he’d abandoned her for the day so easily—expanded in her chest and pushed against her ribs. She pressed her fingers to her eyelids, annoyed even more by the sting of tears.

What was wrong with her? She didn’t need him to trust her. She’d entered into this liaison with her eyes wide open.

Just sex. Not intimacy. Not companionship. Not by any means a relationship. It wasn’t what he’d offered and it was what she had happily agreed to.

But...

The pressure in her chest, the sting of sensation making her eyeballs hurt, refused to subside. They’d spent the last ten days together, barely apart. And it hadn’t been just about sex, not any more. Not for her.

‘There is no shame here. Ever.’

The words he’d said to her in the sauna four days ago echoed in her head. As they had a hundred times since that moment, when everything had changed. She’d shared something with him she hadn’t shared with anyone. The shame she’d carried with her for so long, without even really acknowledging it. And he’d somehow made it better. The ice swimming each morning now helping to reinforce her escape from that shame. That fear. That judgment.

He’d understood something she wasn’t even sure she’d understood herself.

She’d always been sure she had got over her father’s insults, had never internalised them. She had even been stupidity grateful that he’d only once used his belt on her the way he had so often used it on her brothers. Sticks and stones and belts were worse than names, she’d told herself.

But after feeling that rush on her skin again, after so long, from swimming in cold water, it had brought it all back. How she’d loved to go down to the beach with her brothers. How those stolen swims had been an escape, an act of rebellion, a secret pleasure they had all shared. The teasing and games, the larking about, even the shared misery as they’d scrambled back into their clothes in the howling wind, pressing sandy feet into damp shoes. Those swims had been a chance to get away from the miserable tension, the barely leashed violence, the cruel words and endless threats that had marred so much of their childhood. Those swims had allowed them to be children again.

And she’d missed it, unbearably, once it had been stolen from her. By their da.

So much so, she’d forced herself to believe she didn’t need it. She didn’t even want it anymore. The camaraderie with her brothers, the sweet rush of feeling, the stolen moments when they were just kids together—not hostages to her father’s moods and binges, his violent, volatile temper.

And Logan had somehow understood that. And given it back to her.

He’d listened intently to her story. The good memories and the bad. And offered comfort, and validation. And even joy. With his words and then his body. And he’d reinforced that new-found freedom every day since, coaxing her to theavantountil she’d become as addicted to the rush as he was...

They hadn’t spoken again about her past. But she’d begun to look forward to their mornings now as much as their nights.

But that was off the agenda today, because he wasn’t here.

It wasn’t just the swim. What was worse was the knowledge that the sense of connection, which had felt like so much more than sex—the new-found intimacy, the friendship she thought they’d built with the easy smiles, the playful gestures, the moments out of bed—couldn’t have meant to him what they had to her.

Or he wouldn’t have thrown away the chance to swim with her today. When they only had a few more days left together.

She picked up her mug and bowl, carried them over to the dishwasher and loaded them in, breathing heavily so the pressure in her chest—that feeling of loss—wouldn’t crush her.

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