And maybe she could leave now, could get up and walk away, but the action would be merely physical. Her mind, her soul, her heart were constantly with him and she begged for resolution, needed this chance of closure as much as Ethan clearly did.
Needed to tell him how much he had hurt her, needed this time together before she closed this painful chapter for good and moved on.
And it had to be closed, Mia reminded herself; there was too much water under the bridge for anything else.
She sensed his presence before she saw him.
Felt the tension in the room lift a notch as the doctor removed her drip and the nurse helped her out of her gown, and tried to ply her shaking body into the beastly black dress.
‘I’ll take it from here.’
He stood at the entrance to the cubicle, supremely in control, trapping her with his gaze as the medical personnel drifted off.
‘I can dress myself, thank you.’
But pride had no place in this cramped hospital cubicle; shaking hands and his unwavering gaze made the simplest task impossible. With only one stocking on it was easier to rip it off than attempt the other, forcing bare feet into way-too-high heels, then reluctantly taking his hand as she lowered herself off the trolley.
‘Have you got everything?’
‘Apart from my pride.’ Angry eyes met his. ‘How dare you demand I stay till you return? How dare you exert your authority on the hospital staff and talk about me as if I were some sort of unhinged person? I nearly went, you know.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Ethan pointed out, not remotely fazed by her outburst. ‘Turn around; your zip’s undone.’
And if she hadn’t been seven months pregnant she’d have reached her hand behind her back and pulled it up herself in one lithe movement, but pregnancy allowed for no such luxuries, and pulling her dress to her waist and half doing the blessed zip up then twisting it around as she had done this morning clearly wasn’t an option right now. Instead, burning with shame, she stood stock still, refusing his order to turn around, her breath catching in her throat when Ethan gave an easy shrug and moved behind her, piling her blonde curls unceremoniously on top of her head and lifting her hand to hold them.
‘It’s stuck.’ She could feel his breath on her neck, feel his warm fingers as they tugged at the treacherous zipper that had chosen the worst possible time to give in on her. Okay, it wasn’t a maternity dress, just a simple linen shift, and maybe Mia had been pushing her luck choosing to wear it today, but never had she envisaged this outcome. When she had put it on this morning, not for a single second had it entered her head that Ethan Carvelle would be dressing her later.
Undressing her maybe.
The honest admission, even if it was only to herself, caused a deep blush to darken her cheeks, spreading over her neck and down to her swollen breasts. As his hands made contact with her spine it was as if he’d reached into her body and touched her somewhere deep inside, her whole body involuntarily quivering as slowly he worked the zip upwards, pressing one hand onto her exposed flesh, past the black of her bra strap, up between her shoulder blades, her arms trembling as she held her hair out of the way, eyes closing as he moved to the tiny hook and eye at the top of the neckline, his touch more than she could bear and be expected to breathe.
‘That’s fine.’ Pulling away too sharply, she shook her head slightly, his bland, utterly unmoved expression only serving to exacerbate her palpable tension. ‘Can I go home now?’
‘Of course.’
‘You collected my car?’ Mia checked and Ethan nodded. ‘How did you know which one it was?’ Her eyes narrowed, watching every flicker of his reaction, waiting for a blush, a look of discomfort to flash over his face, but Ethan remained unmoved, giving a small shrug before he answered.
‘I’ve been watching you.’
‘Watching me?’ Appalled by his answer, gibbering with rage, she stepped closer, but instead of stepping back Ethan stood his ground, the closeness she had instigated excruciatingly uncomfortable for Mia, but having zero effect on Ethan as her enraged voice rose. ‘What do you mean you’ve been watching me? For how long?’
‘A few weeks now.’ Ethan shrugged. ‘Despite your little speech about being the only one close to Richard, Mia, the simple fact is that I’ve visited my brother regularly. Towards the end I visited him every day, in fact.’
‘But you live in Sydney, your whole family’s in Sydney now…’
‘Correct. And as much as you’d like to write us all off and give more weight to your theory that all Carvelles are callous, the simple fact of the matter is that since Richard was diagnosed as terminal I flew to Cairns every week to visit him, which is no small journey, and towards the end, when I knew time was running out, I moved into one of my properties here so I could spend more time with him.’
It was too much to take in. Her mind whirred, reeling at the information, that Ethan had been here, that he had been watching her these past few weeks, had been in the hospice holding Richard’s hand. Mia’s mouth opened and closed over and over, hundreds of questions bobbing on her tongue as she tried to fathom what exactly it was she wanted to ask.
Ethan answered her unvoiced question.
‘I avoided you, Mia.’ His words were short and clipped, his eyes more menacing than she could ever have imagined, unrecognizable from the giving young man who had made love to her all those years ago, a world away from the tenderness he had once so easily imparted. ‘Truth be known, I could think of nothing worse than being in the same room as you: a confrontation at a dying man’s bedside really isn’t my style. Despite the crap you might have read about me, I do have some standards.’
‘No, Ethan, you don’t.’ It was Mia’s voice that was short now, Mia’s voice unwavering and in control, her eyes defiant as she stared back at him. ‘I’ve read all about your multimillion-dollar deals, circling like a vulture over failing hotel businesses then swooping in and buying them for a song.’
‘That’s business.’ Ethan shrugged.
‘Perhaps,’ Mia conceded, but her stance stayed strong. ‘But what about the women, Ethan? What about the women you woo into your bed, only to discard the following morning?’
‘I’m not into one-night stands,’ Ethan clipped. ‘If you actually read the papers a bit more closely you’d have realized most of my relationships survive a bit longer than that.’
‘Not much,’ Mia sneered. ‘A week, a month at the most.’
‘So?’ Ethan shrugged. ‘I don’t lie, Mia. I never promise it’s going to be for ever, and if you actually asked any of the women I’ve dated in the past I can guarantee not one of them regret it, however short and sweet it may have been.’
‘You can guarantee it, can you?’ Her lips were set in a taut line, her breasts rising and falling as if they had a life of their own as the unleashed fury that had held her together for seven years ripped out of control. ‘Well, here’s one woman that regrets it, Ethan. You’re now looking at a woman who wishes more than ever that she hadn’t been one of your ships that passed in the night, who would love to turn back the clock and wipe out every last piece of memory of the time we shared.’
‘Liar.’ One finger slowly razored her cheek, working its way past her ear, down the hollows of her neck till it met the flickering pulse in her neck. Transfixed, filled with loathing and lust, she stared back at him, stared back at the man who seemed to read her innermost thoughts, the man whom she had physically pushed aside in every waking moment but who had, for seven long years, slipped into her dreams every long, lonely night. She wished she could lie better, wished she could stare back and tell him that she meant every word she had said, but her