Ethan couldn’t have told her any more clearly where he thought his responsibilities lay …
What had Mia expected? That last night, their incredible lovemaking, would have somehow changed things between them? That it would have blocked out the past and the long five years since they had last been together? Had she hoped that their obvious physical compatibility meant they could now find some measure of understanding between the two of them?
Ethan’s easy dismissal of last night had already told her that as far as he was concerned it hadn’t done any of those things …
And Mia? How did she now feel about Ethan?
The searing pain in her head, in her chest, just asking herself that question was enough for Mia to veer her thoughts sharply away from the subject; she would have plenty of time to think about that once she was back in England. Years and years in which to think. To wonder …
She drew in a ragged breath. ‘I believe I’ll give breakfast a miss and go upstairs and pack my things.’ She needed to be alone, with time in which to lick her emotional wounds in privacy.
Ethan gave a wry smile. ‘You couldn’t have brought enough clothes in that small bag to need to bother!’
Mia instantly felt stung by his lack of understanding. ‘Then maybe what I really need is just not to be around you for a while?’
His smile widened derisively. ‘Now, that I can understand!’
Her frown was pained. ‘Can you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he drawled. ‘You really should have listened to me last night when I warned you to be very sure of what you were getting yourself into.’
Yes, she should. But at the time Mia had wanted Ethan so badly she hadn’t wanted to hear his warning, let alone act upon it.
And now? How did she feel about their lovemaking now?
Well, for one thing—and it was really the only thing that mattered!—Mia now realised that it couldn’t actually be called making love! Without love, without that tenderness of emotion, it was just sex. And not the ‘uncomplicated’ kind that Ethan had once referred to so derisively, either—nothing that happened between herself and Ethan was ever uncomplicated!
‘Yes, I really should have,’ she conceded evenly. ‘Would you make my excuses to William and Grace?’ She turned abruptly on her heel to almost run towards the doorway leading into the coolness of the hallway.
‘Mia!’
She came to an abrupt halt, drawing in two deep and steadying breaths before turning back to face Ethan, her heart contracting in her chest as she gazed her fill of him from behind the shield of her sunglasses, knowing she probably wouldn’t see him again after today …
The expression in his eyes was as unreadable as Mia’s own, and for the same reason, but there was a softening about the chiselled firmness of his mouth. ‘I believe your father intends talking to you privately before you leave.’
‘Oh, yes?’ she said warily.
Ethan had suggested that William accompany him on the walk to the bakers earlier as a way of being alone with the older man, intending to tell William that it was time he told Mia the truth about the past. He had been preaching to the already converted, as it happened!
Grace had already had that same conversation with William in the privacy of their bedroom the evening before. Had pointed out that Mia was no longer a child in need of William’s protection, and that if he wanted there to be any kind of future relationship with his daughter then it was time for him to be honest with her about the past.
‘Yes.’ Ethan nodded now. ‘I’ll be down by the pool when—if you would like someone to talk to afterwards.’ Or a shoulder to cry on!
Not that Ethan thought for one moment that Mia would choose his shoulder to cry on—the fact that they had spent the night together and Mia still intended leaving later today was enough of an indication that nothing had changed between them. And Ethan had never been any woman’s one-night-stand! Even for old times’ sake …
‘Or not,’ he accepted dryly when he received no response to his offer.
‘Do you have any idea what he wants to talk to me about?’
‘I think that’s between you and William, don’t you?’
She gave a frustrated shake of her head. ‘Meaning that you do know but you have no intention of pre-warning me!’
Meaning that Ethan had no intention of giving Mia even more reason to dislike him! ‘I’ll call the air crew after breakfast and make arrangements for you to fly back to England this afternoon.’
‘Fine.’ She frowned. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he assured her heavily, and she gave an abrupt nod of acknowledgement before making her escape.
Which was a pretty apt description of what Mia had just done, Ethan thought; she obviously regretted their having spent the might together so much she couldn’t wait to get away from him!
CHAPTER TWELVE
MIA felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach as she staggered out of her father’s study just over an hour after the two of them had entered it.
As if someone had whacked her on the back of the head with a sledgehammer before dealing the final blow by kicking her legs out from under her!
She had been wrong. So very wrong.
About everything—the last four years of her parents’ marriage and several years before that. Her father’s supposed affair with Grace Black. Her own three-month relationship with Ethan five years ago that Mia had assumed, once she’d learnt after her mother’s death and her father’s relationship with Grace, had simply been Ethan using her to further his own ends.
The things Mia’s father had just told her—all of it was so incredible.
Heartbreaking …
And at the same time totally believable!
How could Mia possibly have any doubts as to the truth of the things her father had told her when the telling of them had reduced her strong and dependable father to tears? Had reduced them both to tears …
No, Mia couldn’t doubt her father’s sincerity. Especially when she had already begun to have her own suspicions about the past since arriving here yesterday.
Ethan’s revealing that he had actually once intended to teach had been a revelation, for one, and the absolute integrity Mia had sensed in those private conversations she’d had with Grace.
Grace Burton. Her father’s wife. And deservedly Mia’s stepmother.
Because Mia now knew everything her father had tried to protect her from all these years.
Her mother’s many affairs during their marriage. The fact that Kay had been leaving them both for one of those lovers on the day of her car accident. How William had stood by the scarred and crippled mother of his young daughter after her lover had abandoned her. How that ex-lover of her mother’s had then begun to blackmail him with the threat of revealing her mother’s behaviour to the young and emotionally vulnerable Mia.
How William and Grace had met almost a year after Kay’s accident. How they had fallen in love with each other—a love he had once again reassured Mia had nevertheless remained only a friendship until after Kay’s death three years later.
Kay’s suicide.
Kay had left William a letter, after all. A letter he had shown Mia today, which revealed how, bored and curious one day, Kay had been devastated when she’d found the evidence in a locked drawer in the desk in William’s study that her previous lover had been blackmailing William ever since her car accident in order to keep his silence. It had also revealed that William knew Kay had been leaving both William and Mia at the time of the car crash …
‘Are you okay?’
Mia raised startled lids to see Ethan leaning against the wall further down the hallway, looking as if he been there for some time.
Ethan. The man Mia had so mistrusted five years ago she had refused even to see him again after her mother died, cutting him out of her life as completely as she had her father.
She looked down the hallway at Ethan now, sunglasses tucked into the neck of his T-shirt, r
evealing those grey eyes as being both watchful and guarded.
‘I thought you were going to the pool?’
‘I can do that later.’
After Mia had gone back to England …
‘Are you okay?’ he repeated gruffly as he pushed away from the wall and walked down the hallway towards her.
Mia gave a humourless smile. ‘As okay as I can be after discovering that everything I’d thought the truth was actually a lie, and everything I thought of as deception was really the truth!’ she murmured self-disgustedly.
Including, she was sure, the things she had thought about her own relationship with Ethan five years ago …
Which was of absolutely no help whatsoever to Mia now!
In her pain and distrust she had accused Ethan of terrible things. Terrible and unforgivable things.
Which was why last night with Ethan had just been his way of saying goodbye. Of drawing a line under something marked ‘unfinished business’ …
She winced. ‘Did you always know about … the things my father just told me?’
‘Not initially, no,’ he stated firmly. ‘My mother and William explained the situation to me after your mother … died. I hope you understand that William was only trying to protect you by not sharing those things with you before now?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed shakily.
‘It’s only been having you here, and both my mother and I pointing out the risk of losing you a second time, that’s convinced him he had to tell you the truth now.’ Ethan sighed his frustration.
She gazed up at him quizzically. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t feel … goaded into telling me the truth yourself this past six days?’
Ethan gave a firm shake of his head. ‘I made a promise to William never to do that. My mother and I both did.’
Mia nodded. ‘And I’ve given you every … provocation to break that promise.’
‘I would never have done that,’ he repeated evenly.
No, he wouldn’t, Mia acknowledged heavily. Because Ethan was a man who possessed the same integrity as his mother. And that same loyalty to William. Even if his integrity and loyalty had driven a barrier between Ethan and Mia …
‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘you’ve made it obvious on more than one occasion that you don’t believe a word I say!’
Ethan stood in front of Mia now, close enough for her to feel the comforting heat of his body, but not close enough that he was actually touching her.
And why would he ever want to touch her again after the way Mia had behaved towards him—five years ago by disappearing without so much as a goodbye, and this last few days when she had treated him as if he were her enemy? Whatever genuine affection Ethan might once have felt for her Mia knew she had effectively killed it with her distrust and accusations.
‘I owe both you and your mother an apology for the way I’ve behaved,’ she acknowledged quietly.
That Mia was badly shaken by her conversation with her father Ethan had no doubt; it was there in the pallor of her skin, the pained darkness of her eyes, and the slight trembling of her lips that she was trying so desperately to keep under control.
Ethan couldn’t help but admire the steady darkness of her gaze and the way she stood so straight, determined to accept his condemnation if he wanted to give it.
Something Ethan had no intention of doing. And not only because there had already been enough misunderstandings and unhappiness.
Most people would have crumbled under the barrage of information William had just shared with Mia, and she was obviously emotionally upset, but certainly not broken.
Ethan’s hands slowly clenched at his sides as he resisted the impulse to reach out and take Mia in his arms, offer her comfort; her coolness towards him earlier, her quiet dignity now, told him he was the last person Mia could accept that comfort from.
‘You couldn’t have known.’
‘I could have tried giving you all the benefit of the doubt.’ She sighed.
‘William told you everything?’
‘I certainly hope so; I’m not sure I can take any more shocks or surprises just now!’
No, Ethan could imagine not. It wasn’t a pretty story by anyone’s standards, and would certainly have shaken the very foundations of Mia’s world. ‘I’m just sorry you ever had to hear it at all.’
‘Don’t be.’ Mia reached out to lightly squeeze his arm before letting her hand fall awkwardly back to her side as Ethan instantly tensed. ‘I think a part of me has always known that my parents’ marriage wasn’t—well, that it wasn’t as happy as it could have been. I’ve only been with Grace and William for a day and I can already see the difference in the two relationships. And once I had acknowledged that then everything else fell into place. In fact, I’m not sure that the last five years of blaming everyone and everything else for what happened weren’t just some sort of self-denial on my part,’ she admitted.
Ethan nodded. ‘I’m not sure that I could ever have done what William did for all those years.’
But in a way he had, Mia realised. Ethan might not have known the truth until after she had disappeared five years ago, and so had been unable to tell that truth to Mia even if he had wanted to, but because of his promise to William he had chosen not to do so even when the two of them had met again the previous week—had instead suffered in silence as Mia continued to hurl her scornful accusations at him.
Ethan looked down at her searchingly now. ‘And are things … easier between you and William now?’
‘I’m sure that in time they will be.’ Mia assured him.
‘That’s good.’ He nodded distractedly.
‘Yes.’ She gave a self-conscious grimace. ‘Do you have any idea where Grace is?’
‘She’s in the kitchen, preparing lunch. She likes to keep busy when she’s worried.’
Mia drew in a ragged breath, knowing she and her reaction to the things William had intended telling her this morning were the reason for the other woman’s present worry. ‘I’ll go and talk to her now.’ She turned in the direction of the kitchen.
‘Mia …?’
She turned slowly, her expression guarded. ‘Yes?’
Ethan’s expression was just as unreadable. ‘Do you still want me to make the arrangements for you to fly back to England this afternoon?’
Did she? Mia knew she needed to spend time with her father—for the two of them to get to know each other again, for them to rebuild their relationship after so many years apart. But at the same time Mia knew that she needed some time alone first, in which to process all the things her father had told her, to come to terms with those things before they could both move forward.
And she couldn’t do that around Ethan—knew that her emotions were just too confused when she was anywhere near him.
Or not …
Last night might have been Ethan’s way of drawing a line under their past relationship, but it had revealed something else completely to Mia.
She was still in love with him.
She hadn’t just become attracted to him all over again. Hadn’t fallen in love with him all over again. She had simply never stopped loving him!
It had been five years since she’d left so abruptly, without telling anyone where she was going. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-one days, to be precise. And Mia now knew she had continued to love Ethan for every single one of them.
It was because she still loved Ethan that no other man had ever merited a second date, let alone threatened the wall Mia had built around her emotions.
She loved Ethan. Unequivocally. And she always would.
A love Ethan would never—could never—return after the way Mia had distrusted him so badly. She accepted Ethan’s offer.
‘I really do need to get back to the coffee shop, and my father said that he and Grace will be coming back to England themselves some time next week, anyway.’
Ethan smiled ruefully. ‘If I know William, now that things are more settled between the two o
f you they’ll be back in England some time before the end of this week, not next!’
Mia returned that smile. ‘I’d like that.’ Only to shift uncomfortably as Ethan just stared down at her, obviously as much at a loss as to what to say next as Mia was. ‘What happened between the two of us last night—’ she began.
‘Am I right in assuming you would rather forget it ever happened?’ he questioned knowingly.
Forget last night? Forget the pleasure Mia had found just by being in Ethan’s arms again? Forget the closeness, the joy of being with him again?
Mia could never forget it.
She never wanted to forget a single moment she had spent in Ethan’s company. Would no doubt spend the rest of her life haunted by those memories …
‘As you said earlier, it was just unfinished business that we both needed to deal with,’ she said.
It was still unfinished business as far as Ethan was concerned!
How could it not be when, if anything, the tension that now existed between himself and Mia was more intense than it had ever been?
‘I—my father has suggested I might like to join you all at the house in Berkshire for Christmas,’ Mia spoke huskily. ‘But if that’s going to be a problem for you—’
‘It isn’t a problem for me, Mia,’ Ethan bit out dismissively, his jaw clenched. ‘You?’
She gave a shrug. ‘No, it isn’t a problem for me either.’
‘That’s good.’
Was it? Mia wondered painfully. Was it really ‘good’ that she and Ethan would meet up again in a few months’ time and behave as if the two of them had only ever been polite strangers? Was that a ‘good’ thing?
Would it be ‘good’ in the years to come too, when Ethan attended those family Christmases first with his wife and then with children they had together? Would that be a ‘good’ thing—?’
She was getting ahead of herself! One day at a time—that was how Mia had to deal with this situation now. How she had to deal with loving Ethan …
She straightened. ‘I’ll go and apologise to Grace now.’
Ethan nodded abruptly. ‘And I’ll go and check on William.’
Surrender to the Past Page 13