by Nikki Logan
He nodded. ‘Even her parents weren’t aware.’
Oh, my God. ‘Zander, I don’t know what to say.’ Not about how awful that must have been for him. Not about the raging anger towards a woman she’d never met for hurting him so badly. Or the raging jealousy that was suddenly surging through her for some stranger he’d loved enough to marry.
‘There’s nothing to say.’ He shrugged, but it was the least casual thing she could imagine. ‘It’s ancient history.’
‘When was this?’
‘Right out of uni.’
Fifteen years wasn’t ancient. ‘You were young.’
‘And stupid as it turns out.’
She slid over to stand beside him so they could both look out at the beautiful, healing landscape below. ‘It’s not stupid to want to spend your life with someone. It’s brave.’
And that was an odd word to have chosen.
He digested that for a moment. ‘I wasn’t brave. I think I did it because it was the right thing to do.’
‘How long were you together?’
‘Four years. Since final year at school. We both enrolled at Lincoln.’
Excellent. High-school sweetheart, too. ‘You must have loved her a lot.’ Maybe he still did? It would explain a lot.
He thought about that. ‘I think it was one of those break-up-or-get-married moments. So I proposed.’
‘And she broke up.’
‘Pretty much.’
‘In the worst imaginable way.’
He slid his eyes down to her. ‘Strength of character wasn’t one of her strong suits. She had very dominant parents.’
That wasn’t a woman she could imagine him admiring. ‘Hurting you was easier than facing them?’
Dark brows folded. ‘Seems so.’
Cappadocia whizzed by beneath them.
‘Well, I guess now I understand your cynicism about marriage. And your reaction after the promo went so wrong.’
He looked at her for the first time in minutes. ‘I had to face two hundred of our family, friends, and neighbours, and tell them Lara wasn’t coming. The idea that I’d set someone else up for the same public humiliation...’ He shook his head.
That stole her breath every bit as much as the moment the balloon had played chicken with the sharp slope of the mesa. Her stomach lurched the same, too. In crystal-clear replay she saw the moment in the elevator all those months ago that he’d seen her distress, turned and shielded her from prying eyes with his body, and then helped her slink, unseen, from the parking garage. That was a foundation moment for her. And for him it had all been about sympathy.
‘Is that what the whole Year of Georgia thing is about?’
Pity?
‘If I could have started my life over, back then, I would have. Gladly. So I was happy to be able to give you the chance.’
She stepped away, just slightly, and pretended to admire the view. But she was as taut inside as the ropes holding the two parts of their aircraft together. ‘So this is your restitution?’
His voice dropped low. ‘Somewhat. Making sure you got something out of it.’
Right.
Then he stepped up behind her. ‘But not all of it. I can see where you’re going, Georgia. Working your way to assuming I slept with you out of guilt.’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘No. I slept with you because it was inevitable. I’ve been wanting to since we met.’
She slanted a look back up at him. ‘It’s not some twisted Year of Georgia loyalty-programme bonus class?’
His smile rivalled the sunrise. And his chuckle warmed her from the inside out. Even as she fought it. ‘No. Though that suggests you learned a thing or two.’
She blew at the curl that hung over her eyes. ‘You have no idea.’
He nodded slowly. She felt it against her back. ‘Me, too.’
Well...this was awkward.
‘So, the fifty grand was about guilt, but the sex is about...sex?’
It was stupid to hope for more. But it wouldn’t be the first time her heart and her head had operated in opposition. The secret, foolish desire that she would be the one woman who he wanted more from.
His eyes shadowed over briefly. ‘The fifty grand was about keeping us both out of court for breach of contract.’
And the nine hours of intensive loving...?
He lowered his voice, given the proximity of the pilot. ‘Last night was about you and me and this amazing place,’ he went on. ‘And the attraction that’s been distracting me so much for the better part of half a year.’
That sounded a lot like... ‘Scratching an itch?’ It sounded as awful as it felt.
He sighed heavy and hard behind her. ‘Medicating a burn.’
If she needed any clue that they’d be going back to their London lives—separately—on Monday morning, that was it. You only medicated something you wanted healed over.
Zander hadn’t promised her more. She’d made her decision last night despite knowing that. So she had no grounds for complaint.
‘Up ahead,’ the pilot said with the best timing.
They both forced their eyes onto something other than each other and Georgia gasped as they descended amongst a field of giant, jagged pillars that stretched skywards, strong and masculine and potent.
Just like the man behind her.
‘This is extraordinary,’ Zander breathed, his eyes fixated on the ancient geology as their balloon bobbed amongst others over the natural wonder.
This whole weekend had been extraordinary. Living her dream just being here in Turkey, then, overnight, immersed in heaven with Zander.
But extraordinary in a bad way, too. Unravelling the origin of his anti-marriage sentiment and discovering firsthand how that was going to impact on her. No wonder he wasn’t interested in risking himself again.
Zander Rush liked to take holidays from reality. But they were only mini-breaks.
First Hadrian’s Wall and now Göreme. Every time they got away from London he was like a different man; he let himself indulge the attraction between them and be someone totally different from everyday Zander. Someone who communicated. Someone who laughed. Someone who loved.
Except it wasn’t love. It was medication.
As though his connection to her was something he needed to be cured of. A temporary ailment.
Back in the real world, Zander took care to pack himself carefully away—in his big empty house, on his epic, solo marathons, in his expansive plush office. He kept everyone at arm’s length. Absolutely by design.
Georgia stared out, letting the verbal spiel of the pilot wash over her: about the people of Cappadocia, about the heritage. She could hear it later on Zander’s recorder. It was hard to be in this prehistoric place that had seen war and famine and death and entire civilisations come and go and worry about one man’s feelings for one woman.
It seemed so trivial.
But she was that woman. This was her life. And so it wasn’t trivial at all. The Year of Georgia was supposed to have taught her who she was. It was supposed to have given her a taste of what was possible and highlighted the deficiencies in her life. And it had worked.
She was Georgia Stone. For better or for worse.
Weirdly obsessed with plants, content to walk alone amongst Roman ruins, uninterested in cooking or wine appreciation or shoes, but a crack shot with a blank-pistol and the fastest code-cracker the spy school had ever seen. Terrible at the contrived sexy steps of salsa but a natural at the private undulations of belly dancing. A decent rower but a terrible swimmer. She was a lab rat and a loyal and ethical employee.
And she had a heart as protected and hidden as any of the seeds she X-rayed. But at least now she knew, without a doubt, that it was competent. That she was competent.
She was Georgia Stone. She would find her way.
And though she’d enjoyed the detour of the past few months, it dawned on her in realisation as blazing as Cappadocia’s sunrise that her way just wouldn’t
include Zander Rush. He’d come into her life bearing the gifts she needed to find herself again. Perhaps his cosmic role was now complete and the last twenty-four hours were just the most amazing swansong.
This conversation, this day, was her marker. He wasn’t sorry about what they’d done but he wasn’t interested in more and he certainly wasn’t interested in for ever.
And she was.
It hit her every bit as dramatically as the Cappadocian landscape had. She wanted a for ever someone. Dan hadn’t just been about keeping up with her friends. He’d been about trying to build something lasting for herself.
She wanted someone to share her life with. To explore with. To commiserate with. She was tired of being alone.
But just anyone would not do. She’d had a taste of something spectacular—someone spectacular. That was going to be very hard to go back from. And holding out for someone worthy didn’t seem as scary after the six months she’d just had.
Her heart buoyed just like the envelope bobbing above their heads.
He was out there. She would find him.
But then, with the same sinking feeling that came with shutting off the gas, she accepted another hard truth.
She just wouldn’t find him in this balloon.
* * *
Stalling the inevitable was easy to start with.
First, there was the business of getting the balloon back down to earth, onto the back of the pickup truck, the air out of the envelope, and the glossy fabric rolled up and stowed in the gondola. Then, there were too many ears in the bus that drove them back to Göreme to do more than smile politely at each other. Once back in the hotel, the exhaustion of twenty-four sleepless hours had claimed them both and it wasn’t too hard to convince Zander that she wanted the comfort of her own room and shower for a very necessary few hours of shut-eye.
When all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep in the circle of his arms.
But now it was late afternoon and Zander stood at her door, an optimistic bottle of wine in his hand.
‘Right now?’ He gaped.
‘My flight leaves in three hours. A car’s coming for me soon.’
The wine sagged towards the stone floor. ‘Why?’
‘Emergency at work,’ she lied.
He lifted one brow. ‘A seed emergency?’
Defensiveness made her rash. ‘I don’t remember signing anything that gave you say over what I do with my private time.’
He didn’t bite, though he did glance around him in the dim hallway. ‘May I come in?’
‘I’m packing.’ Truth was she was already packed because, even though she desperately needed it, sleep had evaded her. But her suitcase lay conveniently open on her luxurious, plump bed. She stood back so he could enter.
‘What’s going on, Georgia?’
‘Nothing. I just have to get back.’
‘Your seed emergency. Right.’ He placed the wine on the table. ‘What’s really going on?’
He had to know. Surely.
She shrugged. ‘We’ve done Göreme. We’ve done the ballooning. We’re done.’ In more ways than one.
‘But you were so keen to see Cappadocia.’
‘And I’m already planning on coming back for a longer stay.’
‘This is about last night.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Last night was...’ What did more cosmopolitan people say at this moment. Fun? Wild? Memorable? ‘Last night was a one-off.’
The eyebrow quirked again. ‘Really? And you felt the need to fly out of the country to avoid a repeat?’
‘I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.’
He snorted. ‘Right. This is much easier on my feelings.’
His sarcasm triggered hers. ‘I’m not really up on the protocols of dis-entanglement.’
He repeated the word, silently. ‘Wow.’
‘Zander—’
‘For someone inexperienced in the art of casual sex you certainly are a quick study at the kiss-off part.’
‘This isn’t a—’
‘Yeah, Georgia, it is. But what makes you so sure I was even offering a round two?’
‘I...’ That took the wind from her sails. ‘You turned up with wine.’
He held the bottle up. The text was in Turkish but the image on the label was of a big balloon flying over Cappadocia. ‘It was a keepsake. I got me one, too.’
Oh.
‘If I hadn’t knocked would you have even told me you were leaving?’
‘Of course!’ But not until the very last minute. And he seemed to know it.
‘You don’t have to leave, Georgia. If last night was a mistake for you, then fine. We can keep our distance until tomorrow. But this is your trip. You’ve wanted this for ages.’
‘I can’t—’ Be here. With you. And not be with you. ‘It’s time to go.’
‘You don’t trust me.’ Again, not a question.
‘Of course I do.’ She sighed. She didn’t know anyone she trusted more. Dan included.
‘So what’s the problem?’ Awareness blinked to light in his grey eyes. ‘Unless you don’t trust yourself.’
She just stared.
‘That’s it, isn’t it? If you stay you don’t trust yourself to stick to your own resolution.’ Triumph glossed over his anger. He stepped closer. ‘So if you want me,’ he went on, ‘why are you leaving?’
‘I don’t want you.’ I don’t want to want you.
‘Liar.’
Yeah, she was. ‘This was an aberration, remember?’
He frowned. Clearly he didn’t remember saying it.
‘Besides today, tomorrow, what does it matter when we finish it?’ she asked. ‘Or do you just like to control the use-by dates on your affairs?’
Lord. That word sounded both very grown up and very old-fashioned at the same time.
His lips thinned. ‘I just want to understand it, Georgia. To understand you.’
Something made her ask. ‘It would have finished tomorrow, wouldn’t it, Zander?’
He tensed up.
‘Because this isn’t real. You said it yourself, you and me in this fantasy place. We would have ended the moment we touched down in London.’ He didn’t contradict her. ‘So what’s a few hours between friends?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Friends?’
‘Unless I’ve misunderstood you,’ she risked. ‘If you wanted something more long-term, Zander, now’s your chance. Just say.’ Because she’d be up for it.
His lips pressed tighter together. His eyes roiled.
She held on longer than was good for her dignity, just in case. But still he stood silent. As expected.
‘So, now that we’re on the same page,’ she said, heartsore, ‘I’m exercising my right to choose. And I choose out.’
She sounded much calmer than she felt.
‘I guess I should thank you,’ he said after a long, silent age.
‘What for?’ Giving herself so wholeheartedly to him?
‘At least this time I won’t have to explain myself to two hundred people.’
Her heart sank. She hadn’t even considered the similarities to his runaway bride. But the two situations were nothing alike. Were they?
‘I’m not running out on you.’ Yeah, she was. Avoiding the whole situation. ‘I’ll see you in London.’
‘Business as usual.’
‘Is there another way?’
She longed for him to say there was. She longed for him to say, Stay and we can be a couple. She longed for him to tell her she meant enough to him to break his work-only rules for.
But he wouldn’t.
And they both knew it.
He scooped the wine up and placed it carefully in the centre of her open suitcase protected by her intimates. Then he turned back to her and spoke.
‘See you in London.’
And then he was gone.
TEN
November
Thwack.
Her arrow hit the target, not quite as close as she was aimi
ng but at least it found purchase. She lowered the bow.
Indoor archery—the latest on her list. Actually, it was supposed to be outdoor archery but it was the dying days of November and autumn had already dragged as interminably as her mood. The Year of Georgia was galloping by and would be over before there was any further warm weather, so indoors it was.
She and Zander were back to the early days of her Year of Georgia classes—politely civil. He came to exactly as few classes as he needed to get the monthly segments done and he seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for recording everything—much more sound than he needed. But the segments were proving unexpectedly popular with EROS’ listeners and so he had to keep producing them, even when she thought he would probably have preferred to just let the whole thing go. Maybe buy out her contract personally to be rid of the hassle.
They’d had their promotional value well and truly. Twice over. Every time a segment aired people remembered Dan, too, and there was a flurry of general media attention about where he was. What he was doing.
Who he was doing.
He’d been seen around town with someone. A woman. The same woman. So at least one of them had managed to find their way out of the mire to a regular sort of relationship. Although as fast as the gossip had come that they were on, it seemed as if maybe they were off again.
For her part, she surprised herself by discovering that even being given everything money could buy got old. She was tired of the Year of Georgia. She was tired of smiling politely at Zander and speaking into his digital recorder and pretending everything was fine.
Everything was not fine.
He filled her consciousness when he was around and plagued her thoughts when he wasn’t. She sat in life-drawing class looking at a phenomenally proportioned naked male model and all she could think about was Zander’s proportions. The curve of his strong shoulder. The gentle undulation of his throat. If her drawings never looked like the man she was sketching it was because they generally looked more like Zander.
Having asked Casey to strip her schedule of anything resembling Egyptian stone therapy and deep muscle massage, she begged Zander’s assistant to put them back in. If only to relieve the new tension she lived with these days.
They helped, but only for an hour or so each week. Then the lingering dissatisfaction and un-rightness returned and troubled her until the following week.