Chapter 7

“Don’t say anything.” The pitch of his voice went down another notch, and he slid his other hand under the curtain of her hair, his eyes locked on hers.

Every nerve tingled at his touch, and every cell in her body throbbed with awareness. His eyes were the deepest blue she had ever seen—bluer than the Brathellae loch at midnight, bluer than a midnight winter sky. He was still holding her left hand, the heat from his hand seeping into her body with the potency of a powerful narcotic. She was aware of every part of his hand where it touched hers—the pads of his fingertips, the latent strength of his fingers, the protective warmth of his palm.

Lea forgot to breathe. She was transfixed by the slow descent of his mouth towards hers, spellbound by the clean, fresh scent of his warm breath, mesmerised by the magnetic force drawing her inexorably closer, closer, closer to his lips. It was as if she had been waiting her entire life for this to happen. She hadn’t been truly alive until now. She had been a formless ghost wandering through life until this moment, when she had morphed into a live and vibrant female body with urgent needs and desires. Her heart sped up, her pulse leapt, and her anticipation for the touchdown of his lips was so acute that it was almost unbearable.

Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me.

It was a silent chant, keeping time with the pounding beat of her heart.

But suddenly Dave dropped his hold and stepped back, opening and closing his fingers as if to rid himself of the taint of touching her. “Forgive me. That wasn’t meant to happen.” His tone was brusque, his expression masked.

Fuck! What the hell was that? She thought.

Lea was so overcome with disappointment that she couldn’t find her voice. She couldn’t bear to look at his face in case she saw his disgust for her written on his features. The cruel taunts of her teenage boyfriend echoed out of the past in her head.

You’re ugly. You’re a cripple. Who would ever want you?

She looked down at her left hand, where the ring was mockingly glinting, her stomach plummeting in despair. Such a beautiful ring for a girl who couldn’t even attract a man enough for him to kiss her. What a mockery that ring was. A glittering, glaring, gut-wrenching reminder of everything Lea was not and never could be.

“It’s okay,” she said at last, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “I understand completely.”

He sucked in a deep breath, sending his hand through his hair so roughly that it left deep, crooked finger trails. “I don’t think you do.”

Lea turned and got down to the business of serving their meal onto the plates where she had left them on the sideboard, next to the serving trolley. She placed the plates on the dining table and glanced his way. “I think I do understand, Dave. This engagement is nothing like your last. You loved her.” She released a painful breath. “You still love her. That’s why getting engaged to me makes you feel so uncomfortable, because you feel you’re betraying her memory.”

A muscle in his jaw flickered as if he were grinding down on his molars. “I don’t wish to discuss Susannah with you or anyone.” His eyes were like closed windows. Curtains drawn. Shutters down.

Lea sat down at the table and spread her napkin over her lap. “I realise you’re still grieving. I’m sorry things have worked out the way they have—for her and for you. It was the saddest thing, especially since you’ve had so many other tragic losses in your life. But I think your grandfather was right in encouraging you to move on with your life.”

“Oh, so you quite like the way he went about it, do you?” His tone was as caustic as flesh-eating acid.

Lea pressed her lips together, fighting to control her see-sawing emotions. One second she was furious with him, and the next she felt sad he couldn’t let go of the past. “Please sit down and have dinner. I’m getting a crick in my neck looking up at you.”

If only he could stop being so tall and an asshole.

Dave strode over to the table, pulled out the chair, and sat down, his knees bumping hers under the table. She shifted back a bit, trying to ignore the rush of heat that shot through her legs and straight to her core. Why couldn’t she be immune to him? Why was she so acutely aware of him?

They began eating in a stiff silence, only the clanging, discordant music of cutlery scraping against crockery puncturing the air.

Lea drank her glass of champagne, and Dave refilled her glass as if he were a robotic waiter, but she noticed he didn’t drink from his. His untouched champagne glass stood in front of his place setting, releasing bubble after bubble in a series of tiny vertical towers.

She picked up her glass with her left hand, and the diamonds on the ring winked at her under the chandelier light coming from overhead. Something was niggling at the back of her brain. Why hadn’t Dave given Susannah his grandmother’s ring? Lea remembered Susannah’s engagement ring as being ultra-modern and flashy. It was a look-at-me ring that was not to Lea’s taste at all.

“Dave?”

He looked up from the mechanical task of relaying food from his plate to his mouth. “What?” His curt tone wasn’t exactly encouraging, nor was the heavy frown between his eyes.

Lea toyed with the ring in her left hand. “Why didn’t you give your grandmother’s ring to Susannah when you became engaged?”

Something passed through his gaze with camera shutter speed. “She didn’t like vintage jewellery.” He put his cutlery down and shifted his water glass an infinitesimal distance. “I didn’t take it personally. I was happy to buy her what she wanted.” He picked up his cutlery again and stabbed a piece of parsnip as if it had personally offended him.

Lea waited until he had finished his mouthful before asking, “How are her parents and siblings coping? Do you hear from them or contact them yourself?”

A shadow moved across his face like clouds scudding across a troubled autumn sky. “I used to call them or drop in on them in the early days, but not lately. It only upsets them to be reminded. Besides, we aren't that close.” He put his cutlery down in the finished position on his plate and rested his arms on the table, his frown a roadmap of lines.

Lea reached for his forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I can only imagine how awful it must have been to have come home and found her like that."

He pulled his arm away and sat stiffly upright in his chair, his expression as blank as the white tablecloth. But after a long moment, he relaxed his posture as if something tightly bound within him had loosened slightly. “When someone takes their own life, it’s not like any other death.” His gaze was haunted, his tone bleak. “The guilt, the what-ifs, the if-onlys, and the what-could-I-have-done-to-prevent-this are unbearable.” He expelled a heavy breath and continued, “I blame myself for not seeing the signs.”

“You were always away. There is not—I mean, you mustn’t blame yourself, but I understand how you and most people do,” Lea said. “But I read somewhere that sixteen percent of suicides are completely unheralded. It’s a snap-in-th moment decision borne out of some hidden anguish.”

Dave picked up his champagne and drained it in a couple of swallows, placing the glass back down with a savage little thump. “There were signs but I ignored them.” He waited a beat or two before continuing in a ragged voice. “She had an eating disorder. I don’t know how I missed it.”

His mouth twisted in a grimace, and his tone became tortured with self-loathing. “How can you live with someone for months and not know that about her?”

Lea reached for his hand, but this time he didn’t pull away. “Shame makes people hide lots of stuff. Bulimia is mostly a secret disease and much harder to pick up on than anorexia, where the physical effect is so obvious.”

Dave looked down at their joined hands and turned his over to anchor hers to the table. He began to absently stroke the back of her hand with his thumb, the caress only light, lazy almost, but no less magical. Nerves she hadn’t known she possessed reacted as if touched by a live electrode, zinging, singing, tingling.

He lifted his gaze to hers, and something toppled over in her stomach. His thumb remained on the back of her hand, but he didn’t release her. His gaze moved over her face, as if he were memorising her features one by one. When he got to her mouth, she couldn’t stop herself from sweeping the tip of her tongue across her lips—it was an impulse she had zero control over.