‘I’m not some child you can just cart off.’
‘No, no, you’re not, and that’s not...that’s not how I meant it.’ Fuck. ‘I’m sorry, I just... I panicked.’
Her eyes flicker as she frowns, her cheeks burning more. ‘Fine. Let’s go.’
She gives Harry a small smile. ‘Thanks for today, I’ll give you a call next week.’
‘Sure. No probs, Liv.’ He looks to me, his eyes narrowed, his smile grim. ‘Good to meet you, Valentine.’
It’s all I can do to nod before turning away and stalking across the stand to the car park out front. I don’t turn to check she follows me. I trust that she will. She doesn’t want to air any more of ‘us’ in public and neither do I.
It can wait until we’re alone and I’m not shaking, I’m not reliving the past, I’m not brimming over with my impossible love for her...
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Olivia
I’M SO PISSED off as I get in his car, pull the seatbelt across me and fold my arms. Stare straight ahead. I don’t care if I look like a sulky teenager. He just embarrassed the hell out of me in front of Harry.
‘You had no right to do that.’
He doesn’t answer, only starts the engine and drives us out, his silence provoking my anger all the more.
‘Did you hear me?’
His fists clench around the steering wheel and he refuses to look at me. ‘I heard you.’
‘Care to tell me what that was all about?’
‘I told you.’
‘You told me I was risking my life, which is ridiculous.’
‘It’s hardly ridiculous. Cars are a loaded weapon. All vehicles are in the wrong hands.’
I frown at him, my head shaking. ‘Have you heard yourself? One minute you’re telling me that caring for someone, loving someone even, doesn’t give them the right to control them. The next minute, you’re doing just that under the guise of giving a fuck!’
His fingers pulse around the steering wheel; there’s no colour left in his face, but I can’t let this go.
‘You ordered me home, Valentine. In front of a friend, no less.’
Now he looks at me for less than a second, but it’s enough to see the pain, the torment. ‘I’m sorry.’
I watch his jaw pulse, his throat bob as he swallows. He looks worse than grey now. Even with his bronzed skin he looks like a ghost, his eyes too wide, his entire body tense. What the fuck is going on? This isn’t just about me, this isn’t about the Bugatti incident either; it goes deeper and—
Layla.
It comes to me like a slug to the stomach. The accident that killed his wife. I swallow as realisation dawns, my skin prickling up with goosebumps top to toe as I shiver. It’s about her.
I want to kick myself for not working it out sooner. I should have searched the internet, pressed him for the details—anything but this.
‘Is this...is this about Layla?’
His grip pulses around the wheel again, his lashes flutter as though I’ve struck him. I hate myself for doing this in the face of his pain, but I have to. I have to know. I have to understand.
‘Yes. No.’ He shakes his head. ‘Yes.’ Another pained swallow. ‘We were in a car accident.’
His voice is hoarse with anguish and I have to suppress the urge to quit the questioning.
‘Was she driving?’
He looks at me, the smallest shake of his head before he looks back to the road, the driver’s side window, the road. ‘She was—but it wasn’t her fault.’
I’m silent, patient as I sense the rest coming.
‘We were on the motorway. It was late. We’d been to a party. I was—I was drunk and fooling around, messing with the radio, teasing her...’ He closes his eyes, opens them wide as he sucks in a breath. ‘A lorry came across the central reservation—the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. It all happened so fast—the motorway was empty, save for us. One second everything was fine and the next, the headlights were straight ahead. She tried to avoid it, but at that speed...’
My stomach rolls, tears spiking as I reach out for him, my hand soft on his thigh. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘If only we’d left earlier,’ he carries on. I’m not even sure he’s heard me. ‘She was tired, she wanted to go but I—I was having too much fun and you know how the M40 can be. I figured the later we left, the less traffic there would be.’
‘But it’s not your fault.’
His silence speaks volumes. The guilt he still feels written in the lines that bracket his mouth and crease up his brow, the sorrow in his eyes. I think of my drive to Oxford, the same motorway. I think of his reaction, his belief that I have a death wish, that I was being reckless.
‘You weren’t to know,’ I stress. ‘Neither of you were—it was an accident, a horrible, devastating accident.’
‘It doesn’t change the fact she’d still be here now if I hadn’t kept us out so late.’
‘You have to stop torturing yourself.’ God, I wish he’d pull over. I wish I could take him in my arms and make him listen to me.
I pray my words are going in but he’s so quiet, so still. I study the scar on his brow, see the scars that lie beneath the surface too, and my heart aches. I care about him too. I care too much.
I lift my fingertips to trace the bold line. ‘Is that how you got this?’
He presses his lips together, bites down on them and I feel the shudder that runs through his broad frame.
‘It’s my daily reminder. That and my voice. Prolonged intubation can do that to you.’
I shake my head, press my palm to his cheek, my heart bleeding for what he went through and the pain he’s still in. ‘You need to put the past behind you. Life’s too short to live it
