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“Cressida.” She said her name with a dose of acerbity, because the other woman had really rubbed her the wrong way by being so beautiful and free-spirited. “The papers hounded you, you left the country. Did you go straight to Manhattan?”
He dug a hand into his pocket. “It made sense. I already travelled there a lot for work. I had offices established, a good team.”
“And what about women?” she couldn’t resist asking. “You must have been in high demand.”
His lips compressed. “I wasn’t looking for that sort of thing. I just needed space.”
Tia frowned as they started to walk back towards the house. “Sure, but it was a while ago now. Years. So since her, there must have been someone.”
“No.”
“No one special?”
He stopped walking abruptly and glanced down at her, his face a mask of tension. “No. No one. At all.”
Her lips parted and her throat seemed close to closing over. Shock was a physical force, shaking her insides. “You haven’t been with anyone since Cressida?”
“I haven’t been interested in dating.”
“Umm, last I checked, sleeping with someone isn’t dating.”
His eyes flared. “It is, for me.”
“Aw, stop,” she said, with a soft twist of her lips. “Don’t tell me you’re a romantic?”
“I just don’t think you can separate out the physical side of things from the emotional. And even if you can, I’m not interested in trying.”
“So what? You’re always in love with the people you sleep with?”
“No. I’ve only ever been in love once. But I’ve always liked, respected, thought I could love the women I’ve had sex with.”
It was a revelation to Tia and it also left her feeling strangely empty. Cold. Judged. Like her whole lifestyle was possibly wrong somehow because she’d enjoyed hooking up as and when she wanted to, with men she found attractive and nothing else. In fact, the less she knew about them, generally, the better.
It had never bothered Tia. She liked her life and lifestyle. But suddenly, Hamish seemed like some sort of other-worldly being, too good for her to be even fake married to.
She shoved the thought aside with force. What in the patriarchal way of thinking? Virginity wasn’t a virtue, and celibacy wasn’t either. Indulging desire was a person’s choice. Nevertheless, the idea of ignoring your body’s physical urges because you were holding out for more than the sheer ecstasy of a great physical connection seemed somehow noble and worthwhile.
At least, unicorn-ish.
They started to walk again, now in silence, until Hamish let out a rough bark of laughter. “You’re surprised.”
She opened her mouth to deny it then smiled up at him. “Kinda, yeah.”
“What’s so wrong with what I’ve said?”
“I didn’t say it was wrong,” she corrected automatically, heat flushing her cheeks. “It’s just unusual.”
“Because you think I should have jumped straight into bed with someone else to get back at her?”
“I probably would have,” she admitted.
“I doubt that.”
“You don’t know me.”
He stopped walking again and reached for her hand, his eyes boring into hers. “I don’t think that’s exactly true, do you?”
“Look, I know I come across as self-possessed and in control, and most of the time, I am. I learned to be. My family was probably even more messed up than yours… I know, hard to believe. But if I’d had a meltdown every time my parents lost their shit at me for no reason—or at each other—I’d have had a nervous breakdown by twelve. I learned to control my temper, my mood. For the most part. But every now and again, something gets so deeply under my skin, makes me so outraged at the injustice of it, that I snap, and I do something stupid. And I have to say, in that situation, the something stupid I did probably would have been to hook up verrrrry publicly with the hottest, richest, most desirable person I could find and beg the press to take pictures of it. Immature? Sure. Satisfying? One thousand per cent.”
