Like him, she’d changed—life did that to a person. If he was honest, Harry’s accident had already changed him before he’d met Lauren all those years ago. He knew he’d used their summer together to take a time-out from the all the pain and heartache of the previous nine months. For a few precious weeks he’d pretended that the accident hadn’t happened and his family’s lives hadn’t been brutally upended. He hadn’t expected to fall in love. It had scared the hell out of him.
He was halfway through decoding the change in her scent—what it may or may not signify—when her heat poured into him in like fire water, streaking through his veins and exploding into every cell. The sweet curve of her behind pressed up against the side of his right thigh and the backs of her own thighs now rested on top of his. His heart pounded hard and fast, carrying her heat and scent around him until it pooled in his lap with an odd mix of yearning and urgency.
Stifling a groan, he closed his eyes and silently named the cranial nerves, trying to reverse the effects of his arousal. It didn’t help that Lauren was wriggling against him as if she was trying to find a comfortable position.
You’re killing me. ‘Stop moving.’
She instantly stilled and he realised he’d barked out the command in the same gruff and terse voice he used in the operating theatre when a patient was bleeding out. He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. It’s just I’m accused of illegible handwriting at the best of times,’ he tried to quip as he struggled to pull himself together. With a trembling hand, he scrawled a message. ‘There you go.’
She pulled her arm back and read out loud, ‘“You’ll be surfing again soon. Charlie.”’ With a sharp intake of breath she moved abruptly back up the couch away from him. When she raised her head, her chestnut brows were drawn down and she was looking straight at him through fully focused eyes. ‘I haven’t surfed in years.’
Stunned surprise broke over him. In the intervening years, whenever he’d thought of her he’d pictured her on her surfboard, eyes shining and racing him to the shore. ‘Why not? You loved it.’
Her nostrils flared and she sucked in her lips as if she was in pain. ‘Are your ribs hurting?’ he asked. ‘Do you need more medication?’
She slowly swung her legs off his, the action stiff and guarded. ‘No. Right now I need to be clear-headed.’
‘Right now you’re better off being pain-free.’
This time her laugh rang out loud and harsh. All the recent softness playing on her face and weaving into her body vanished, replaced by the familiar defensive guard. ‘Tell me, Charles. Why did you break your promise to me?’
Bewildered, he stared at her, seeking clues from her tight expression and her return to the use of his full name. He got nothing. He racked his brain, trying to work out what the hell she was talking about but he came up blank. ‘My promise?’
* * *
Lauren’s heart twisted. He has no idea what I’m talking about. The pain in her ribs and the throbbing in her arm surged back, morphing from a dull ache to sharp, stabbing pain. As the intensity ratcheted up, her logic and reasoning returned. With it came despair. Oh, God, what had she just done? Under the influence of Endone, she’d lost her filter and all her reserve. She’d flirted. She’d snuggled up with Charlie on the couch exactly as she’d done when she’d been eighteen. Only she wasn’t a teenager any more—she was a grown woman who knew how much he’d hurt her.
Why had she asked him about the promise? Especially when he’d just saved her life. Not to mention the most important fact, which was that she did not want to revisit a time that had caused her heartache—a time she’d worked so hard to let go. Hah! Okay, a time she’d thought she’d let go. Obviously, remnants lingered and the speed with which they’d roared back into life when she’d come face to face with Charlie had taken her by surprise. She wished she could hide.
His eyes bored into her. ‘What promise?’
He doesn’t even remember. Old despair sank its teeth into her. More than anything she wanted to stand up and walk away from him, but she didn’t think her legs would hold her. If they gave way again, he’d swoop in and catch her. She didn’t trust herself not to give in and let him cradle her close. When his arms had held her in the café, the unexpected sense of being home had been so strong she hadn’t wanted to leave. The survivor in her knew that emotions like that were dangerous not only to her peace of mind but to her heart—an organ she’d already shored up and repaired more than once.
The only way to protect herself was to restore the distance she’d so carefully placed between them when they’d met at Bide-a-While—the distance drugs had just jettisoned. ‘Ignore me,’ she said briskly. ‘I’m not making any sense. I need to sleep.’
His gaze was too perceptive, roving over her face, seeking clues. ‘I think it’s more likely you’re making absolute sense for once. You’ve been prickly ever since we met at Gran’s. This promise is connected to that, isn’t it?’
She’d forgotten how observant he was and how quick his brain. Perhaps, if she closed her eyes, he might take the hint and leave. Her lids lowered and she shut him out, trying to let sleep claim her.
‘Lauren?’
Damn it. He wasn’t going away. In fact, she’d bet her bottom dollar he would sit there until she told him. She didn’t know which was the worse humiliation; that she’d flirted and snuggled into him or that she’d raised the hurt she’d long associated with him. The answer was simple: it was the latter and now she couldn’t back away from it. A long, bone-weary sigh rumbled out of her. ‘You told me you were coming back.’
‘Coming back?’ Bewilderment skittered across his face. ‘Where? When?’
The fact he had no clue what she was talking about hurt more than her bruised ribs. ‘Do you remember our last night together?’
He was quiet for a moment. ‘I have a strong suspicion I don’t remember it as well as you do. But before I’m accused of something, I want to say with absolute honesty that our summer together was one of the happiest of my life.’
She flinched as his words poured salt on a wound she knew should have healed a very long time ago. She hated that it hadn’t. Hated herself more. ‘Your happiest?’ she scoffed. ‘That’s probably because nothing about that summer was real. We immersed ourselves in each other and hid from the world.’
This time he flinched, as if she’d shot an arrow at him and made a direct hit. ‘Was that so bad? We had a lot of fun.’
‘We did.’ She couldn’t argue that. ‘Then it ended.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Just as we both always knew it would. We were young. We’d agreed...’
The arrow returned, piercing her this time, and she couldn’t hide the hurt. ‘Then why did you move the goalposts at the last minute and tell me that you were only going to London for a year?’ Her voice rose despite her desperate attempts to sound detached. ‘I stupidly waited for you to come back.’
A thousand emotions rose and fell in his eyes until all that was left was guilt and pity. ‘The intern position I had in London was only for one year,’ he said quietly, tugging at his ear. ‘Did I actually say to you, “I’ll be back?”’
She opened her mouth to say a decisive yes but something on his face and in his voice—not regret but perhaps concern—made her hesitate. She rolled her mind back to a time when she’d sat on the enormous picnic rug at the mouth of the cave. She smelt the hot, sweet fat and the tang of salt from their paper-wrapped fish and chips. She heard the raucous squawks of predatory seagulls brawling for prime position, ever hopeful of scoring food. She tasted the syrupy sweetness of passionfruit soda laced with vodka—her favourite beverage that summer—one she’d not tasted since. It had been their last of many picnics together on the beach.