Lili looked tortured, her face pale. ‘I know, I’m so sorry that you had to find out like this.’
‘Were you ever going to tell me?’
She blinked. ‘I know I should have. But I think when things changed between us…became physical… I started to change too and you’ve shown me that I can feel…normal again. And I liked that. I didn’t want to go back to the past.’
Cassian could empathise and he hated that. He wanted to take Lili by the arms and tell her that of course she was normal, and what even was that anyway? He also wanted to haul her into his body and kiss her until all of this receded far into the background. But there was another part of himself that was dominating those warring impulses.
The part of himself that had been formed the day of the accident when the worst thing in the world happened. When he’d learnt that you couldn’t count on anything, or anyone.
The part of himself that he had to call on now. Reactivate. So he could survive this and walk away from the emotion shimmering in Lili’s eyes.
She said now, ‘Cass, earlier, I almost said something to you but that was when the man came and—’
He put up a hand. He had no idea what she was going to say but he knew with every fibre of his being that he couldn’t allow her to say it. Because it would threaten everything that had held him together since he was a boy.
‘No. I don’t want to know.’
She lifted her chin. ‘I think you should know that I—’
‘Ithink,’ Cassian interrupted her with the very unfamiliar feeling of panic gripping his gut, ‘I think that you should go back to the villa. Clearly things have escalated in a way that neither of us expected but we have done what the doctor advised—’ He stalled here, his mind suddenly full of very unhelpful X-rated images of Lili touching herself and then sitting astride him and taking him into her body.
He went on, ‘And so, you might already be pregnant. And if you’re not, we will revert to the original plan of using IVF.’
Lili’s face was leached of all colour. ‘You think I should go back to the villa, take a pregnancy test and if I’m not pregnant, try to get pregnant using IVF.’
‘Yes. That is what you promised me at the very start of all of this. A marriage of convenience and an heir.’
‘I know I did…but that was before. I had no idea…that I would fall for you, Cass.’ She went on, speaking quickly as if afraid he’d try to stop her again. Cassian was too stunned. Winded.
‘That’s what I was going to say earlier, that I thought I was falling for you, but I know now that it’s too late. I’m already in love with you.’
‘Not to mention,’ she went on, ‘the fact that the chemistry between us doesn’t seem to be getting less. It’s stronger now than ever. You know more than me how these things work but even I can tell it should be going the other way.’
* * *
Lili held her breath. Cassian was looking at her with no discernible expression on his face. As if he’d been turned to stone. She’d never told anyone in her life that she loved them. She’d loved her parents until it had become clear that they held no such feelings for her. She’d always vowed that she would never love again unless she could be certain she’d be loved back.
She’d thought the safest way to achieve that would be with a child of her own. She hadn’t counted on Cassian. But what was becoming very clear right now was that what she felt wasn’t remotely reciprocated.
She could feel herself curling inwards as if to protect from a blow.
Then he spoke. ‘I have a race to focus on. You can stay here until you return to Como. I’ll have someone get in touch to help you organise travel. I’ll stay somewhere else.’
He turned to go and Lili couldn’t help saying, ‘That’s it?’
He turned back to face her. ‘That’s it.’
Then he turned again and he was gone. The door closing incongruously softly behind him.
Lili breathed out shakily. After a few minutes she heard the low throttle of an engine. Cassian, getting away from here, from her, as fast as possible.
And yet she didn’t regret telling him she loved him. She couldn’t have contained it, once it beat within her.
But what killed her most was that she’d learnt nothing—after being comprehensively rejected by two sets of parents, at the first opportunity she’d sought out the same experience. After all those years of protecting herself.
That’s only because you cut yourself off from the world,pointed out a little voice. That made her feel sicker. If anything this just proved that on some very fundamental level, she was unlovable.
Maybe even a child wouldn’t love her. Panic gripped her and she went into the bedroom and scrabbled through clothes until she found what she was looking for. The early pregnancy test.
