The Dare Collection August 2019. Christy McKellen

incredulity I’m sure is all over my face. ‘No. Of course not. What makes you think that?’ Irritation buzzes through my nerve endings even as I acknowledge that his question leaves him open and exposed, just like I want him.

      ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘It’s hard to switch off feelings just because someone we love changes their mind.’ He could be asking me if I still believe in fairies for all the emotion he displays and my blood runs cold so that goose pimples break out on my arms. Am I wrong? Can he really care if he thinks I’m still in love with my ex? Does he see me as someone too young to know herself beyond sexual infatuation? Will he ever be as deeply invested as me, or is this just marking his territory?

      ‘I guessed you must still be hung up on the guy because you’re still angry with him, still can’t forgive him.’

      I sit up, taking the sheet with me to cover my nakedness. ‘I forgave him for cheating the day I caught him, Reid, more fool me.’

      He frowns. ‘What do you mean?’

      I shuffle away from him on the bed, out of reach. If I have to do this now, like this, I can’t have the distraction of his touch—not when I feel as if I’d have to slap it away, although some of my disappointment deflates, as I haven’t been completely honest with him.

      ‘Josh didn’t just cheat on me. While the split was all rather amicable and, as you’ve already pointed out, incredibly mature of me, he wasn’t content with one lie. We agreed to separate but to keep running our business together for the immediate future at least. So, imagine my surprise when I arrived at the office the following Monday morning to find he’d hightailed with most of our big-name clients, stripped our joint business account and left me with the outstanding bills.’

      I take a minute’s comfort in his ashen expression of shock, but plough on. ‘So no, I can’t forgive him for that, and no, I have no romantic feelings for him whatsoever. But yes, it does make me a naive idiot.’

      ‘I’m sorry—I didn’t know that part. I don’t think you’re a naive idiot, no more than I was with Sadie.’ He reaches for my hand but I tug it away, too raw and too defeated at the reminder, my throat hot with the threat of tears. ‘I’m going to take a shower.’

      ‘Don’t be angry with me.’

      ‘I’m not angry.’ I lie, because half of me is. ‘I’m just humiliated.’ And disappointed. I assumed, again wrongly, that his possession was a sign of his growing feelings, but was it simply jealousy...?

      I head for the bathroom, his stare burning my back. With the water set to almost scalding I welcome the sting of the shower, which reminds me I might not have come as far as I’d thought in my recovery because, no matter how I might want it to be different, Reid doesn’t seem to know me, to truly see me, after all.