“You don’t need to keep avoiding me, Becks. Whatever is on your mind, you can say it to me.”
If she said what was on her mind she was pretty confident that he’d faint with shock, or at least go striding after the rest of her family in a mild state of panic.
“I’m not avoiding you. It’s Christmas. Always chaotic, in my house at least.”
He watched her for a moment. “So the fact that you were gone when I woke up this morning—that wasn’t you avoiding me?”
“No! I was up early and someone needed to walk Percy.”
“Walk Percy. Right.” He paused. “I’m going to ask you a question, Becks, and I want you to answer honestly. Do you regret last night?”
Regret?
“No, I don’t regret it.” That was easy to answer. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all good. Forget it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Forget it?”
“Well, obviously notforget, I mean it was great—” she didn’t want to insult him “—but no point in making it more than it was. We’ll call it what it was. Christmas chemistry.”
“Christmas chemistry? And what is that exactly?”
“You know! Festive spirit. Peace and goodwill to all men.”
“I don’t recall us consuming any spirits, Christmas or otherwise. And I don’t recall any other men being involved either.”
She gave him a desperate look. “You know what I mean!”
“I don’t know what you mean, Becks.”
Why was he being like this? She was making it so easy for him to agree that they should just put last night behind them. Why wasn’t he helping her?
“It doesn’t matter.” She’d never been so flustered. “Anyway, moving on from that, we need to talk about our breakup. Tell me how you want me to do it. I was thinking I could just say that the whole thing isn’t working out, and it’s my fault. What do you think?”
He thrust his hands into his pockets and stared out across the ocean. “I don’t like that.”
“Okay.” She stared at his profile, trying to read him. “What if I say that spending all this time together at Christmas made me realise that I’m not the right person for you. You deserve better. Does that work for you?”
“No.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t work for me at all.”
“Oh.” She was thrown. “Okay, well tell me what does work for you, and I’ll do it. Anything. You’ve been so great, Will. You helped me out of a really horrible situation, and I owe you. Whatever you need from me, I’m here for you.”
“Is that right?” He turned to look at her, his gaze lingering on her face.
The look in his eyes unnerved her. “Well, yes. Within reason, obviously. You’ve been so generous. And convincing. No one would ever have guessed you were pretending.”
“Why do you think that was, Becks? Why do you think I was convincing?” His tone was soft and she felt her heart thud a little harder.
“I—you’re a good actor—”
“You think I was acting last night?”
“No, but—” Images from the night before played in her head like a movie and she swallowed. “We don’t have to dissect everything. Just thanks, that’s all. We’ll talk about it another time.” She turned, intending to head back to the house, but he caught her arm.
“You’re not going anywhere—not until we’ve finished this conversation. I know you don’t like talking about emotions, but you’re going to talk about this. So I’m going to ask you again—” He lifted her chin with his fingers so that she had no choice but to look at him. “Why do you think I was convincing?”
She couldn’t find any words and when she didn’t answer he took her face in his hands.
“It wasn’t hard because I wasn’t acting,” he said softly. “The hard part has been pretendingnotto love you all these years.”
