‘I was never planning on staying in Canada for ever.’
‘But while you’re here, Georgie, and this is what I wanted to talk to you about…’She would leave to return to England. Naturally. That wasn’t gut-wrenching at all. In fact, it was terrific that she wasn’t being clingy! That she was already making plans for moving on with a life in which she didn’t want him to play any part at all.
Wasn’t it?
After Sophia, clingy, needy women who wanted more from him than he could ever give were off-limits. He’d always made that clear. In fact, he’d made it clear to Georgie from the start, if he recalled. It was all about protecting himself and his daughter from anyone who might see him as a meal ticket or as devoted husband material, willing to change himself for the greater cause.
He scooped his hand in her hair and angled her so that they were looking directly into one another’s eyes.
‘I don’t want this to end.’
Georgie, ensnared by his dark gaze, felt her heart leap inside her as hope kicked in and with it all those expectations she had kept at bay. Love, marriage, babies, the dog…a retriever, maybe…?
‘What do you mean?’ She cleared her throat. Inside the flames of hope licked higher and higher.
‘There’s no reason for us to end this just yet. Hear me out. On more than one level, it makes perfect sense. You and I are supposed to be in a relationship. When this first kicked off, I remember telling you to keep your distance from Flora but that hasn’t happened. If you disappear, she’ll be upset and understandably so. So were you to stick around for a few more weeks…then what we have could taper off…’
‘Taper off…’ Georgie repeated in a daze.
‘In a natural, organic way. The way two people come together, think it’s the real thing, only to discover that they don’t have quite as much in common as they originally thought.’
‘Yes, I see…yes, those relationships…the ones that never last, hope that fades, dreams that come unstuck…’ Tears clogged somewhere deep inside, in her soul.
‘Yes. Just so! That way your departure will be a gradual process that Flora won’t find too upsetting. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘She might be shaken if I were to vanish all of a sudden is what you’re saying.’ Holding hands one minute, Georgie thought, and then going in separate directions the next minute, with just a backward glance at something that had never, ever stood a chance.
How could she have been so stupid?
‘Exactly what I’m saying. I’m glad we’re both on the same page. Excellent!’
‘What’s the other level?’ She cleared her throat in an attempt to clear her head, to sound normal when she spoke. Everything inside her was hurting.
‘Come again?’
‘You saidon more than one level it makes perfect sense. So what’sthe other levelit makes perfect sense on?’
‘We still want one another, Georgie. I can feel it in you every time we touch and it’s the same for me. We could both pretend that we could walk away from this in a couple of days’ time and look back as though nothing’s happened, but something as strong as what we have needs to run its course.’
‘Why? Isn’t that just stupid self-indulgence?’
Alessandro kissed the words away, a long, lazy kiss, and then, when he was about to draw back, he resumed his devastating assault on her senses.
‘You speak your mind,’ he murmured. ‘And I love that. And you make me laugh and I love that as well. Georgie, we get along. That’s why it makes so much sense for this to carry on to its natural conclusion.’
‘Because we get along? Because I’m honest and don’t pander to you like all those other women you’ve dated in the past probably did?That’swhy this has to continue? Until you get bored of me and my honesty? Or I get bored of you?’
‘I enjoy you.’
‘But this isn’t all about you, Alessandro, is it?’
Georgie had heard enough. The hope that had been shooting off in all sorts of ridiculous directions when he’d opened his monologue by telling her that he didn’t want things between them to end had taken a sizeable battering.
She’d leapt to all sorts of conclusions, had misread the situation and she had only herself to blame.
She’d had another Hans moment, even though she’d spent months upon months on a learning curve that would henceforth protect her from making another mistake when it came to guys and misreading their intentions.
So much for learning curves.
