Page 58 of Seasons of Sin

“There is no you and me,” she said with disbelief.

“I didn’t think so either.”

She dashed her tears away and stared down the street.

“You said you loved me. Love does not simply disappear.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a bit of an idiot when it comes to love, aren’t I? You know, that night I came to see you in Athens, I learned something really damned important. I thought I loved you. And I thought you loved me. Just like I thought I loved Jordan. But you know what? I am a terrible judge of character. Like, the worst. I’m useless. I wouldn’t know love if it bit me on the arse.”

He stared at her with a mix of consternation and amusement. “A tempting thought,” he assured her finally.

“You don’t get it,” she was weary now. “It’s too late. A month ago, I wanted nothing more than to talk about you and me. But seeing you with her …” she shuddered. “Is that a man’s solution for everything? Sex? Because it’s how Jordan dealt with things. It’s obviously how you deal with everything.”

“You are the one who wanted to screw me to pay your husband back,” he reminded her gently.

“Yeah. The one time in my life I make a spontaneous decision and look where it gets me.” She shook her head. “I came to you straight from my husband’s office. I told him I wanted a divorce and then I got on the first flight I could. To you. Because all I could think about was how much I’d stuffed up by walking away from you. How I’d had the best thing in my hands and I’d let it go.”

His heart was cracking with the strength of his feelings. “We need to talk about this.”

“No,” she pushed his chest again. “You don’t understand. Seeing you with her … I can’t … I won’t ever let myself be with a man I don’t trust. This isn’t a month ago. I don’t feel that now. I don’t want you. I don’t want you. I don’t want you.” The words fell from her mouth as tears poured from eyes. “He hurt me. And you hurt me. And now I just don’t want to be hurt for a while.”

Thaddeus nodded but he couldn’t accede her point. “What if I tell you I won’t? What if I tell you I just want to talk? We did not eat dinner. Let’s go and find something, somewhere, and talk.”

“No.” She blinked, trying desperately to stem the flow of tears. “I don’t want to eat.”

“Saphire …”

“It’s too late. Don’t you see that?”

“You left me and I was angry. Very angry.”

“I know.” It was a whisper. “I told you, I regretted it. As soon as I got back to London I knew what a mistake I’d made. It was like a horrible dream.” She blotted her eyes with her fingertips. “I couldn’t go home. I stayed in a hotel, trying to sort the mess of my life out. And all I could think about was you. And the island. And the fact I’d never felt happier.”

“It’s still there,” he groaned, the words shocking him as much as they did her.

“No, it isn’t! Don’t you get that? If I ever went to that island again a part of me would die. It’s all wrapped up inyou.I came to Athens needing, above all, a friend, and instead I got the worst version of you. A version of you I didn’t even know existed.”

The charge hurt for its truth was undeniable. “I have never experienced a loss like your departure.”

“But I came back. As soon as I was free to be with you, I came back.”

He leaned against the wall. The fight was leaving him. “I can’t lose you.” A simple statement; and also a request.

She nodded, but her heart was hard to him now. “You already did. You lost me a month ago when you let me walk away. When you told me I was just sex to you and that you’d replaced me with her.”

“I should never have said that.” He swallowed and a muscle jerked in his cheek. “I wanted to make you feel like I had. It was petty. I regret being so childish and unkind.”

“I don’t care.”

He reached for her hips and pulled her against him. To his surprise, she came. The second her body melded to his he felt alightning bolt of comprehension; everything fell into place like the pieces of a puzzle clicking without any effort.

“Cassandra left after you did. She did not come to my bed.”

Saphire stared at his lips; she was mesmerized. She would stand up again soon; she would put the vital distance between them. But not yet. “If I hadn’t been waiting for you, she would have though.”

They were moving into a dangerous territory. “I had spent every moment since you left imagining you making love to another man. I was almost out of my mind with jealousy.”

“So you were going to try my trick? You were going to punish me by sleeping with someone else?”