“Go ahead, run away from me you self-righteous hypocrite.”
“What?”
I met his furious look with one of my own because I wasn’t backing down. No way. I was sick of paying the price, sick of feeling like crap. Guilt and regret had weighed me down for too long. They had taken hold and turned me into a weak, pathetic shadow and I was bone weary, tired of James’s superior attitude and his inability to forgive.
“You heard right. You’re a hypocrite,” I said. “You want to punish me for something I did when I was a scared kid but you refuse to judge yourself by the same rulebook. You married Caroline even though you lusted after me. You fantasised about her messed-up teenaged sister from the moment you met me. Even on your wedding day you couldn’t resist me, remember?
“Were you going to tell Caroline about your jealousy in the garden or our tender moment in the bridal suite? No. You were going to go on your honeymoon, screw her and think about me while you did it. Not very honest of you, James.”
I returned his scowl tenfold.
“You expected Caroline to forgive you and you got angry when she didn’t. Yet you’re so stuck up your own arse you can’t forgive me for a lie whose only victim was me. You enjoy feeling like God, judging me from a pedestal made out of condescending self-righteousness and—”
“That’s enough,” he said, taking an involuntary step forward.
The air swirled violently between us, charging the flat with angry currents. I flung my handbag and coat on the floor, clenched my fists and braced myself. One way or another my suffering was going to end.
Tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mine
James was taut with rage. “Go home and get some sleep. Try to wake up an adult in the morning.”
I didn’t move. “What’s got you so angry, anyway? You’re not the one who lost his son. Is it your ego? You hate it that I felt another man’s dick before yours. That’s why you can’t forgive me, isn’t it? You still want me in spite of everything but you’re too much the proud coward to admit it.”#p#分页标题#e#
James didn’t answer, staring at me as if the idea of wanting, needing me, was ridiculous.
I advanced towards him. “You’re going to answer me even if I have to beat it out of you.”
He looked down his nose. “That may be the way manipulative liars deal with their problems but it isn’t, and never has been, mine.”
“You supercilious bastard!”
Overpowering fury propelled me across the room and then I was banging my fists on his chest. Who the hell was he to look down his nose at me? To show me how much he wanted me and then turn his back? I was flawed, no doubt about it, but it was time I cut myself some slack. James could forgive me or he could pick me up and dump me on the pavement outside Matham Manor.
He shackled my arms to my sides. “Stop it.”
“Why don’t you make me?”
Why didn’t he feel the same way I did? Why wasn’t he falling apart, crippled by pain and tempted to throw away everything he’d gained because he’d lost me? It wasn’t fair that James could continue his life as if I didn’t matter to him, that he could dismiss me so easily while I’d never been able to, not even as a teenager.
It wasn’t bloody right!
I aimed a punch at his jaw and missed. I loved him; I hated him. I was hell and fury and a woman scorned. A cliché. Hell, I was Caroline, and James was looking at me like he’d looked at her that night in his flat. I stumbled away, clutching at my chest and searching frantically for my handbag and coat.
James yanked me back so roughly I cried out in pain. He was breathing hard and so was I, tears streaming down my cheeks. My chest slammed against his and he pulled me up his torso, two hands on my hips. Our foreheads banged together and I could have sworn I saw the colourful sparks we created. A low groan came out of James’s throat before he gave me what I craved, taking my lips with a violent, savage kiss. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t react. Couldn’t tell him to let me go.
“Don’t think you can do this to me and run away,” he growled, grazing my neck with his teeth.
“What about your date?” I cried, angry and miserable and jealous. “The woman you’re cooking for?”
“She seems determined to leave.”
He carried me into his bedroom and kicked the door shut behind us. And then we were in a tangle of unleashed anger, exhilarating and frightening in its power. I wondered if I had goaded him too far and then I didn’t care anymore because his hands were lifting and pulling, ripping my clothing in his haste to feel me. His careful reserve was gone and all his safety gauges switched off. Mine were too. I tugged and tore, bit and pushed and sobbed out the frustration of the past few months.