By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

scared she’d stop the flow she’d waited so long for him to start.

      ‘You know about Isaac. I had to watch my brother die. The same bomb that tore into me, which is wrecking my career now, took his life. The day Isaac died I died too, Evie. Since then, what little ability I had to love, I lost. And with Isaac gone I lost the only person who really cared what happened to me.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s why I am what I am. I don’t want to be around someone when I feel like that.’

      She took a step towards him. Aware how much it would hurt if at this moment he rebuffed her. ‘You don’t have to feel like that, Finn.’

      Sardonic sweep of eyebrows. Daring her to contradict him. ‘Don’t I?’

      ‘No.’ Closer.

      ‘Why’s that, Evie?’ The biting sarcasm was back but she refused to be put off by it. Toughened herself because she would never be cowed by this angry man who frightened others to keep them at bay.

      Another step. ‘I care what happens to you, Finn.’

      Vehement shake of his head. ‘Don’t pity me, Evie.’

      She almost laughed. ‘You’re not a man anyone can pity, Finn. You won’t allow it. You alienate people so they don’t. But unfortunately I feel so much more for you than that.’

      She swallowed, tossed caution to the winds, stepped closer and stared into his face so he couldn’t ignore her words. ‘I love you, Finn Kennedy. And there’s not a lot of reward for that at the moment.’

      A more subtle shake of the head. ‘How can you love me?’

      Now she was in front of him again. ‘How can I not, you stupid man? I think about you every minute of every day, wondering when you’re going to care for yourself like you should.’

      He sidestepped her, crossed the room to shut the door, shut out the hospital for probably the first time since he’d started here, and then came back. Put himself in her space deliberately.

      ‘What are you saying, Evie?’

      ‘I love you. Foul temper and all.’

      His hands slid around her waist. ‘I didn’t ask for that.’ Something in his voice had changed. Gave her a glimmer of hope.

      ‘You didn’t ask for it?’ She stared into the harsh and haunted face she loved so much. ‘Neither did I. But there’s not a lot we can do about it now.’

      His face softened just a little. ‘So you weren’t just after sex the other day?’

      This was what she dreaded. ‘What do you think, Finn? Did it feel like that to you?’ She’d laid herself open, exposed her soft underbelly of caring, and he could mortally wound her, even worse than he had after she’d given herself to him.

      He lifted his hand and stroked the hair out of her eyes. ‘No.’ He sighed. ‘Though God knows why you bother. What I felt the other day scared the hell out of me, Evie. And that’s not all I’m scared of. I’m scared I’m not the man you think I am.’

      ‘Well, seeing that I don’t want to be without you, Finn, we’ll just have to take that chance. Whatever happens, I’m here for you. And always will be.’

      He shook his head. Couldn’t accept that. ‘I might not just be an emotional cripple, Evie. I could be in a wheelchair.’

      She leaned towards him. ‘Or it could be the answer to all your medical problems. You could get full control back. You have to take that chance.’

      ‘I don’t think it’s an option.’ He sighed. ‘But I’ll think about it.’ An air of finality.

      She had to be satisfied with that. It was better than they’d had before today.