Page 38 of Shy Innocent In The Spotlight

He walked over to the edge of the terrace, standing with his back towards her, his gaze focussed on the view of the abbey in the distance. ‘Marriage is not something I’m willing to discuss, now or in the future.’ He turned to face her, his face set in intractable lines. ‘I’m offering you a relationship for the time being. That’s all.’

‘I’m flattered by your offer but you’ll have to forgive me for declining it,’ Elspeth said. ‘If our feelings aren’t the same for each other, what would be the point? We’d be wasting each other’s time and, quite frankly, I feel I’ve wasted enough years of my life already. I need to take charge of my own destiny and not wait around hoping good things will come my way. I have to go out and find those good things. And one of those good things I most desire is to be loved for me. As I am, allergy and all.’

His dark eyebrows shot together. ‘You surely don’t think I’m holding back on marriage because of your allergy? For God’s sake, Elspeth, didn’t you see how worried I was about you? You almost gave me a heart attack collapsing like that. The thought of losing you is what triggered me into asking you to come and live with me. I want to take care of you.’

She slowly shook her head at him. ‘If I allowed you to do that, I would be simply exchanging you for my mother. I’m not your responsibility, Mack. I want to be much more than a liability you feel pressured to take on out of guilt. I want to be your equal, your partner in life, not a temporary interest that has no possibility of a long-term future.’

He muttered a curse word not quite under his breath. ‘So where do we go from here? You want out? Now?’

Elspeth gave a deep sigh. ‘I think it’s for the best, don’t you? Why prolong something that’s going to end anyway? You were only attracted to me because I was playing the role of my twin. That’s what first got your attention but that’s not who I am. I don’t wear designer clothes and exotic perfume and sky-high heels. I’m not a party girl who can work a room. I’m a shy and introverted homebody who doesn’t belong in your world. If we continued our fling, you’d soon get tired of me, I’m sure. I’d rather we part now as friends.’

‘Friends?’ His top lip curled, his eyes flashed, his jaw tightened. ‘I don’t need you as a friend.’

‘The thing is, Mack, you don’t need anyone, not in an emotional sense. You won’t allow yourself to.’

‘What do you feel for me?’ The question blindsided her for a moment, especially when it was delivered in such a blunt tone with zero expression on his face. He was like a robot, an emotionless robot programmed to issue commands but with no capacity to feel.

Elspeth knotted her hands in front of her body, wary of revealing too much of her feelings for him when there was no possibility of them ever being returned. ‘I’ve enjoyed being with you. You’ve taught me so much, not just about sex but life in general. I enjoyed this time here in Lagrasse, in spite of my health scare. I will always look back on our time together with...with fondness.’

His top lip went up again. ‘Fondness?’ His tone was cynical. ‘Is that all? And yet, here you are practically begging me to get down on bended knee and offer you a marriage proposal.’

A streak of anger rippled down her spine. ‘What you offered me was a proposition, one that’s probably not unlike the one your father offered to his mistress. I suspect he kept her going for years with false promises, fanning her hopes with each little gift when he visited, making her think that one day, her dream would finally be fulfilled, that they would live happily ever after. But it didn’t happen, did it? He was unable to love either her or your mother the way they wanted to be loved.’

‘Please do not bring my father into this discussion.’ His words came out through thinned lips, his tone embittered, his gaze diamond hard.

‘We both have father wounds, Mack,’ Elspeth said, softly, realising it with a flash of insight. ‘We were both let down by our fathers, betrayed, rejected and abandoned by them. But that doesn’t mean we have to live our lives frightened of others betraying, rejecting or abandoning us. We have to be courageous enough to ask for what we want, to not be afraid to embrace it when it happens to come our way. To not short-change ourselves in the fear of losing the one thing we crave above all else—love.’

Mack strode back to the balustrade of the terrace, his hands gripping the stone with white-knuckled force. His back was rigid with tension, his shoulders hunched forward as he fought for control. ‘All right.’ He turned back to face her, his face still devoid of emotion. ‘I’ll change our flights for this evening. There’s no point staying another night when you’re so keen to leave.’

‘You don’t have to do that, Mack. One more night won’t—’

‘On the contrary, I do have to do it. I’ll book your flight for London. I’ll fly to Edinburgh. We won’t have to see each other again after today.’

He turned and walked down the steps leading into the garden, disappearing from sight before she could think of a single thing to say. But what could she say that hadn’t already been said? Wasn’t it easier, less painful this way? A clean cut was better than a long drawn-out goodbye.

There was next to no conversation between them on the way to the airport later that day, but there was a surfeit of tension. Elspeth could feel it pulsing between them in the air in invisible waves.

As they were waiting for their flights to be called to the gate, Elspeth looked up at him. ‘Mack? Please don’t let us end this way.’

His expression was set in tight lines, his mouth a thin line. ‘It was your choice to end it. Not mine.’

‘You’re being unfair. I don’t want to end it with any bad feelings between us. The least we could do is part on good terms.’

‘All right, then.’ He offered her his hand in a formal handshake. ‘Goodbye. I hope you have a pleasant flight.’ It was the sort of thing he might say to a stranger he had just met, or a business associate he had nothing in common with other than work. Not the sort of farewell one would say to one’s lover, a lover who had shared his bed, his body. He was her first lover. Her first love. Her only love.

Elspeth slipped her hand into his and tried to ignore the tingle his touch evoked in her flesh and the arrow of pain in her heart that this was the last time she would feel his touch. A wave of grief swept over her, making tears sting at the backs of her eyes and a lump rise in her throat. ‘Goodbye, Mack. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I really enjoyed getting to know you.’

He was still holding her hand, his gaze shuttered. ‘You’ve got your new EpiPens with you?’

She patted her tote bag with her free hand. ‘Yes.’

His gaze drifted to her mouth, his throat rising and falling over a tight swallow. ‘Right, well then, I’d better let you go. Your flight is due to board any second now.’

Elspeth pulled her hand out of his and forced a smile. ‘Right. Don’t want to miss it.’

He seemed to hesitate for a long moment, just staring at her without speaking. But then, he took her by the upper arms and pulled her close and planted a brief but firm kiss to her lips. ‘Stay safe, m’eudail.’ His voice had lost its brisk impersonality and instead was deep and husky.

‘I will.’ Elspeth turned to join her departure-lounge queue but when she glanced over her shoulder, Mack was gone.

Mack strode down the concourse of the airport to his own departure gate willing himself not to look back. He never looked back when he left a fling. And that was all his relationship with Elspeth was, wasn’t it? A fling. A fling that hadn’t gone the way he’d wanted and that stuck in his craw in a way he didn’t like. He was usually the one who decided when a relationship was going to end. He liked the sense of control it gave him to have the power to pull the plug when it suited him. He didn’t like surprises and Elspeth rejecting his offer to move in with him was an unpleasant surprise. A shock, a gut-wrenching disappointment that he couldn’t explain other than it had thwarted his plans. He had envisaged a few weeks, possibly months of being together, enjoying the passion that had fired between them. He wasn’t the settling-down type, marriage was not and never had been in his plans. He had no wish to commit to one person for the rest of his life. His mother had done that and it had all but destroyed her to find the object of her love had betrayed her in the most despicable way. Love had destroyed his mother as it had Clara and to a lesser degree Daisy, his half-sister. It had certainly contributed to the wayward behaviour of his brother, which had continued to this day. Loving someone gave them the power to hurt you, to wound you, to destroy you.

And he was not going to allow anyone to do that to him.

Ever.

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