She knew—to herbones—that she couldn’t stay in touch with him. She was leaving this part of her life behind. If she really was going to live light and free, then she had to sever all connection.
‘Stay in touch with your lawyer about your asset sales,’ he said quietly. ‘But you know I’ll keep an eye on it for you too.’
She nodded, mustered a slight smile to show her damn gratitude. Her throat was so tight with unshed tears she couldn’t speak.
She looked for one last time into his beautiful almost black eyes. His teasing look gave way to a small smile that sawed through her nerves. She was a total block of wood, couldn’t kiss him back, could barely manage to take the sweetness of his light, gentle caress. Gripped her sleeves even harder to stop herself shattering into a thousand little pieces of nothing.
‘I hope it’s everything you want it to be,’ he whispered.
She barely nodded because now she knew—uselessly—that what she truly wanted was right in front of her. She wantedhim—to love her, to want her, to hold her and keep her... But he didn’t want to keep or be kept. And she couldn’t bear the inevitable hurt of his rejection and her loss.
Motionless, she stared up at him. Stared so hard she could no longer focus. Her last sight of him blurred—he was that fuzzy outline she’d first seen in the bathroom that day. She blinked but it didn’t make it better. She couldn’t say a thing, her throat burning hot but, like the rest of her, paralyzed.
She heard his deeply drawn breath. Felt his hands hard on her shoulders.
‘Go.’ Forcefully he turned her away. Pushed so she took a stumbling step in the direction of security clearance. Her frozen cold feet automatically took the next step. And the next.
She didn’t turn, didn’t raise a hand as she heard him harshly instruct her that one last time.
‘Go.’
TWELVE
The flight lasted a lifetime.The droning engine hurt her head. The air-conditioning left her eyeballs even drier. The chilled blood in her veins made her stiff and cold. After a hell-on-wheels stopover and yet another long, frozen flight they began the descent, except the lights of London stretched forever. And hard as Roxie tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about Gabe. Surely he’d seen it in her face? In that one moment her heart had been exposed, there for him to take. If he’d asked, she’d have stayed, she’d have literally fallen into his arms. Only he’d told her to go.
So go she did—to all the tourist attractions: Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London, Madame Tussauds... And at the end of her first, miserable week, mad with herself for still feeling wretched, she queued for tickets at Covent Garden to see the Royal Ballet, as she’d dreamed of doing for almost two decades.
The theatre itself was beautiful, the audience was beautiful, the ballerinas beautiful. But Roxie’s heart wasn’t in it. She watched the dancers—the incredibly talented dancers—and hated every second of it. In the interval she walked out through the well-lit foyer, out into the crowded, famous square. And that was when she drew up short, not knowing what the hell she was doing or should do or wanted to do. She was in the middle of aforeign city, utterly alone. Just as she’d thought she’d wanted to be.
Only to find itsucked.
She’d made the most massive mistake.
‘Roxie.’
She turned. No one in this city knew who she was. No one in the world knewwhereshe was. So who was calling out to her?
Okay, now she was seeing ghosts—because there was a guy standing just by the theatre entrance who looked exactly like Gabe. But he couldn’t be a ghost because Gabe wasn’t dead, he was back in New Zealand. So she must be hallucinating. Delayed jet lag was sending her crazy.
It was a pretty good hallucination, though, because now the Gabe-non-ghost was walking, his gaze trained on her. She blinked but he was still there, striding towards her, faster now, until he was almost upon her. And he was in the most gorgeous suit and clutching a glossy red program.
‘You don’t like the ballet,’ she said when he got within earshot, because what elsecouldshe say to this unreal creature?
‘Yeah, but you do.’ He stopped a mere ten centimeters away from her, his expression searching. ‘Why have you walked out halfway through?’
‘I didn’t think it was realistic.’ Although it seemed she’d lost her grip on what was real altogether because here she was talking to a hallucination and, incredibly, it was talking back.
His brows nearly hit his hairline. ‘A girl gets let down by a guy so she dies of a broken heart. Then she comes back as a ghost and protects that guy from other supernatural spurned women. Which bit’s not realistic?’ The corner of his mouth rose in the smallest of grins.
Okay, so now she was sure she was dreaming. ‘Youhateballet, so how come you know the story ofGiselle?’
‘Because I’ve sat through three performances already.’ His smile widened to rueful and he stepped just that bit closer.
‘Three?’ Her voice almost failed as she felt the warmth of his breath on her icy skin.
‘I’m sure the woman in the ticket office thinks I’m a stalker. Which I kind of am.’
Roxie stared at him, her mind spinning. He really wasn’t a ghost. He really was here. Oh, Lord,whywas he here?
