She had told him that, in essence, he was now a free man. They would marry but he would be able to find physical satisfaction outside wedlock.
He gritted his teeth.
It made all kinds of sense, yes, so why did everything inside him rebel at the prospect?
He pushed himself away from the desk, leapt to his feet and hit the ground running, right back to the bedroom because there was no way this conversation was finished yet.
Georgie was determined to get to sleep. She’d said what she’d wanted to say and the calm of knowing that she had done the right thing had not translated into a peaceful frame of mind.
She had given him permission to stray!
How was that going to play out? How was she going to deal with that? But what other option had she had when she had withdrawn the possibility of them ever sharing a bed together again?
Rather than think about it, she’d dived into her book, but the print had been blurry and her thoughts had been way too busy playing ping-pong for her to do anything other thanthink,think,think...
Eventually, Georgie fell into fitful sleep, so when she heard the bedroom door opening, it took her a few seconds to realise that Abe was back in the room.
She saw the outline of his muscular body framed momentarily in the doorway, backlit by the subdued lighting in the wide corridor outside. He’d changed into clothes but he was barefoot and she was still as he padded across to the bed.
‘I know you’re awake, Georgie.’
Georgie didn’t bother pretending, especially when he followed up that opening remark by perching on the side of the bed.
She flipped over onto her back and shot up so that she was sitting.
‘I don’t want to talk about this any more, Abe,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve said everything I want to say and now I just want to turn over a new page in this relationship.’
His response was to snap on the bedside light next to her, which made it impossible for her to conceal her expression or fake drowsiness.
‘Tell me how you can say that I am not here for you,’ he demanded.
‘You’re not here for me in the way I want you to be. You know exactly what I’m talking about because I told you and I didn’t try to hide behind lots of empty words. I want love, Abe, and I deserve it.’
In that instant, Abe realised that sitting on the fence was no longer acceptable. He hadn’t even known that that was what he had been doing. He had been protecting himself by suppressing his emotions and he had thought to be protectingheras well.
‘You tell me that I can have my freedom,’ he said gruffly, badly wanting to reach out and touch her, hurting in places he hadn’t realised it was possible to hurt, ‘and I can’t think of anything worse.’
‘Well, I’m very sorry to hear that, Abe, but we’re finished when it comes to sleeping together. It should never have happened in the first place. I was weak.’
‘There’s nothing weak about two consenting adults enjoying one another in bed.’
‘There is when one of them wants more.’
‘Maybe both of them want more,’ Abe muttered, suddenly restless and fidgety and stumbling in untried territory.
‘What are you trying to say?’ Georgie asked bluntly. ‘If you think that you can somehow talk me back between the sheets, then it’s not going to work. I need to protect myself, Abe, and this is the only way I can do it.’
‘That was only ever my wish,’ he ventured. ‘To protect you.’
He shook his head and looked at her with such blazing sincerity that Georgie briefly averted her eyes, but the pull of his piercing gaze was too compelling. ‘I wanted to protect you from...fromme,’ he told her. ‘I thought I could never love you the way you needed me to. It wasn’t in my make-up, Georgie. Love comes with pain and that was something I learnt from an early age when my mother died.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Abe,’ Georgie cried helplessly, ‘that shouldn’t be the way it works.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Nothing is going to convince you otherwise,’ she said, ‘but my mother also died when I was young, remember? But I didn’t let that dictate how I lived the rest of my life.’
‘I know.’ He half smiled. ‘I suppose there was also the onus on me of knowing that one day I would be responsible for running Qaram and, when that time came, there would be no room in my life for the vagaries of love to distract me from doing my duty like it did my father.’
‘Which brings us right back to what I told you earlier, Abe. It’s over between us. We will provide a united front for Tilly’s sake but, beyond that, we will lead our separate lives.’
‘I can’t do that.’
