Rob looked at the river. “You’d made your choice.”
“That’s it, all you have to say?”
Rapid emotions crossed his face, too quick for her to catch. The last one was anger though, that she could read loud and clear. Also, something else she couldn’t put her finger on, something that softened his features and made him seem vulnerable somehow, if only for the briefest of moments until that, too, escaped her grasp.
Anjuli waited.
Waited...
He wasn’t going to explain why he hadn’t come for her? Or why he’d started dating so soon after she’d left? She dug her nails into her palm the way she wanted to dig them into his skin, and took a long, deep breath. It was in the past and maybe she didn’t need explanations. What she wanted was to forget and move on. Sideways, forwards or zigzagging, as long as she stopped thinking about him.
Deep breaths and calm, cool voice. “Thank you for hearing me out.”
He studied her for a long, nerve-wracking moment. “Do you feel better now?”
“It’s not about making myself feel better.”
“Aye, it’s about needing my help. Because if you hadn’t bought Castle Manor you wouldn’t be here, apologising. You’d be avoiding me like I was a Border Reiver, or am I mistaken?”
An image of Rob on horseback, swooping down to capture her, popped into Anjuli’s mind. Except she’d been the one to cause him pain and nothing she said could ever change that.
“I’ve always regretted doing that to you,” she said. “If nothing else, please believe me about that.”
For a few seconds they watched the heron try to catch his meal. He dipped his head into the river and came out with a fish in his beak.
“I was shocked and angry,” Rob said, more conversationally now. “But it soon passed. I had other things on my mind.”
“Like the new girlfriend?” she snapped. Shit. Hadn’t she just decided Rob’s rebound romance shouldn’t matter or hurt? But it seemed that it did matter and that it tore into her insides like a hawk’s talons. “I hear it took all of seven days to forget me.”
“You have no idea—” Rob said, jamming his fists into his pockets. “No. I don’t have to justify myself to you. Not after what you did.”
Anjuli’s eyes moistened for the first time in almost a year, a fact that would have surprised her had it not been for the maelstrom of emotions she was experiencing. Anger. Sorrow. Regret. Jealousy. Not that Rob seemed to notice or care. He’d taken out a folder as if he wanted to hop off the personal barge and onto the business express.
“The manor needs a lot of work,” he said, leafing through the pages.
Yes, that was it then. No more questions, apologies or recriminations. They’d hung out their washing and it had dried, been folded and put away. It was what she’d wanted, but instead of calm relief she was spinning, getting tossed back and forth, wrung out by feelings that should have been swept away by his words.
Rob spread out a large technical drawing. “I drew up a few plans for the manor. I wanted to design a new glass conservatory in keeping with the old one and add other missing features. I gather you want the exterior building work done as well as the interior restoration?”
He took her silence for agreement, then his business-like expression changed, and he swept a loaded, carnal gaze over her body. “Is there anything else you want?”
Oh, yes, so many things. Give me back the past. Keep me twenty years old and make it so I don’t feel this sadness that clings to me like a weed refusing to be uprooted.
Anjuli straightened her shoulders. “The only thing I want is for you to restore Castle Manor.”
A pointed look right at her pussy. “Are you sure, lass?”
God, no. “Of course. Shall we shake on it?”
A few strides and Rob had grasped her outstretched hand, bringing her up against him. Anjuli pulled away and he tightened his hold, imprinting her contours onto his chest, plastering her so close she could smell the masculine spice of his aftershave. Thoughts of the past fled from her mind as her body was taken over by the present.
Why did no other man ever affect her like this? She had to shake herself out of it, needed to take that step away, because it was over and they could never go back, yet she didn’t move. His scent was an aromatic siren, beckoning her closer.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I want?” he asked huskily.
Was he nuts? There was no way in hell she would ask him that. It was too open a question, too blank a sheet of paper. He would write on it until the ink overflowed, spilling into her until she drowned in his lust.