‘Tabitha, don’t.’
She sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Not the most elegant of moves, but she was past caring. ‘Of course it probably needs a good clean, but I’m sure I’ll get a few thousand. I’ve been digging for days trying to find it.’
‘Tabitha, can you stop talking for a moment and look at me?’
‘Why?’ she asked rudely.
‘Just look at me, please.’
She couldn’t—couldn’t do that without breaking down. So instead she focused somewhere over his shoulder.#p#分页标题#e#
‘I know that you love me.’
She didn’t respond.
‘I know that I love you.’
Still she didn’t move.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
‘What is there to say? I told you I loved you when your father had his heart attack. You told me that you loved me too then—oh, sorry, had loved me. But it didn’t stop you walking away.’
‘I was scared.’
Slowly, achingly slowly, she lifted her eyes to him.
‘But why? How could you be scared of me when you’re so powerful…?’
He put a finger to her lips, first to hush her but then the feel of her flesh under the nub of his index finger couldn’t pass without recognition. Tracing the outline of her mouth, he gazed at her, his eyes shining with wonder and love.
‘Tabitha, work doesn’t scare me—that’s why I’m good at it. I can look at a pile of figures and reports, scan a spreadsheet in ten seconds flat, and know instinctively what’s right. And do you know why I find it easy?’
She shook her head, her curls moving as she did so, tinctured every shade of red as the emerging rays of the afternoon sun lit up her features.
‘It’s easy because it doesn’t matter—not to me, anyway. That’s why I’m so good at it. I can totally detach myself. I make a million or I lose a million; at the end of the day it’s only money. But love…’ He gave a low laugh, but there was a break in it. ‘You can read all the signs, think you’ve got it right, that this is the one—but what if you’re wrong? What then? I don’t give a damn about money, Tab, but getting it wrong, losing my heart, being hurt, being used—I couldn’t bear it. My head and my heart were telling me two different things.’
She knew there was more, knew that he hadn’t finished talking. Suddenly they were back on the beach, gazing at the rising sun, taking a moment to regroup, lost in their own pregnant pause.
‘I had my life worked out, had everything sorted. I knew exactly what I wanted and a marriage like my parents’ wasn’t on the agenda. And then you came along, Tabitha, a fiery redhead with an attitude to match, rewriting my rule book as you went along. I almost convinced myself I was trying to protect Aiden and my family when the truth is the only person I was trying to protect was me.’
‘Protect from what?’ She needed to hear it, to be absolutely sure that she wasn’t imagining things, wasn’t getting ahead of herself and reading far too much into his words. She closed her eyes as she awaited his response.
‘From falling in love with you.’ He kissed her then—his lips finding hers easily, their mouths moving in heated unison, the need to seal his words transcending all else. And when, breathless, she pulled away, when the need to finally explain, to justify her actions overcame her ardour, he held her as she spoke, soothing her as he might a child reliving a nightmare.
‘I didn’t do it for the money—or maybe I did. I sort of convinced myself that was why I was doing it.’ Her words were as jumbled as her thoughts. ‘I think I knew I loved you right from the start. Aiden certainly did. But I knew it was impossible, that love wasn’t part of the deal. I tried to tell you about the gambling…’
‘I knew.’ His words stopped the tirade of her confession. ‘I knew way before you told me that you didn’t have a problem; I just didn’t want to hear it.’ It was Zavier who was trembling now, Zavier laying it all on the line with everything to lose, Zavier searching her eyes for a reaction. ‘For a gambling addict you’ve got an amazingly good credit rating.’#p#分页标题#e#
‘You checked up on me?’ Her lips were white now, her mind whirring as she relived the past weeks under this entirely different slant.
He nodded slowly; it was way too late for lies now.
‘So you knew all along?’ His admission had truly shocked Tabitha. Just when she’d thought he couldn’t surprise her, that there was nothing left to reveal, again he had floored her. ‘That night in the casino…’ Her eyes darted down, then back to his, needing, demanding answers.