‘Where were you this afternoon?’
‘What?’
‘You heard.’ Lily didn’t even blink as he spat out his answer with a question.
‘What is this?’ He shook his head and gave an incredulous snort. It enraged her—that he so clearly thought she didn’t even have the right to ask, that he dared to think she would just meekly follow him to bed without knowing where the hell he’d been.
‘Your plane got in at three and you told Emma you’d cleared customs.’
‘So?’ He turned his back on her and went to walk off, and if there was one thing Lily was good at, if there was one thing her time studying psychology at university had taught her, it was that when dealing with an evasive person, to form watertight arguments, to stick to the point and deal with facts. And Hunter was being supremely evasive, trying to change the subject, answering each straightforward question with an accusation of his own and, Lily realised with a sinking heart, lying to her. ‘You then walked through the door and said that customs had been hell, yet Abigail said in the kitchen that you’d cleared customs in five minutes.’
‘Where’s the transcript?’ Hunter sneered, ‘I wasn’t aware you were taking notes of everything I said.’
‘Where were you, Hunter?’
‘Paying for your new dress,’ Hunter roared. ‘Paying for your house and the interior designer to come and fix this apartment to your tastes. Did it never enter your head I might have to go to the office?’
‘I rang the office.’ Tears sparkled in her eyes but she blinked them back, her voice hoarse with emotion but somehow strong. ‘You weren’t there, so—’
‘So you assumed I was in bed with Abigail, assumed that if I wasn’t on the end of the line, waiting to pick up your call, I must be out screwing.’
‘Where were you, Hunter?’ It was the third time she’d asked the question, but practice didn’t make it any easier. Each evasive answer he gave twisted the knife in her heart further. She was scarcely able to comprehend that just a few hours ago she’d been planning to tell him about the pregnancy over a beautiful home-cooked meal, to reveal that, actually, she loved him, that right up until a few moment ago somehow, despite the odds, she’d always trusted him.
‘Why bother asking when you’ve already made up your mind?’ His blue eyes stared at her coolly.
‘You said that you’d be faithful.’
‘And you said you’d be fun!’ He shrugged his shoulders at her shocked gasp, the anger gone from his voice now. She almost wished it back because anything was better than the icy disdain, his complete dismissal. ‘I guess neither of us really knew what we were letting ourselves in for.’
‘You bastard!’
‘Apparently so.’
He turned to go then changed his mind, anger back in his eyes as her faced her.
‘Did it never enter your head that there might be a reason other than that I was sleeping with Abigail? Did you never think that today’s my parents’ anniversary, that perhaps I was upset and went to the cemetery?’
Guilt tripped it’s switch, but didn’t dim her hurt—the impossibility of living with him, of only being privy to the tiniest part of him taking its toll now. Her voice was thick with emotion when finally she answered him. ‘How, Hunter?’ she rasped. ‘How could it have entered my head when I didn’t even know it was their anniversary? How could I have possibly even thought it when you didn’t even tell me the accident happened in Singapore? Where you were today? You tell me absolutely nothing about how you’re feeling or thinking or what’s happening…’
‘I’ve just told you where I was. I’ve just told you how I felt.’
‘But look what the hell we had to go through to get there!’ She was crying now, hot choking tears streaming down her face as she tried to face this impossible man. ‘I don’t think I can do this any more, Hunter. I don’t think I can carry on like this. I can’t keep giving myself and getting nothing back.’ And though it was a plea for help, for understanding, for them to somehow sit down and rewrite the rules they had drawn up, it was also a confrontation, because surely if he felt anything for her on an emotional level, now was the time to reveal it. Surely if he did want a new level of intimacy then now was the time to tell her, show her. ‘I don’t know if I can keep sharing your bed, keep—’
‘Then do us both a favour and don’t!’ He broke into her heartfelt attempt to explain with such a curt, dismissive tone, such brutal detachment it more than served than its purpose. The river of tears dried up instantly as her shocked mind absorbed his words. ‘You know, I think twelve months was stretching it—even twelve weeks is looking untenable.’