least not physically. But emotionally...? That was a whole different concept.
It made her choose her next words very, very carefully. ‘I’m trying to be reasonable here,’ she offered at last, trying surreptitiously to take a step back.
He took a step closer to her. Just one, single step. But his stride was longer than hers anyway, and it was enough to force her to tip her head back to look up at him.
Enough for her entire traitorous body to leap in thrilled anticipation. Her hands actually itched to reach up and grab the material of his dark wool coat which had no business clinging to every ridge and muscle which she already knew lay beneath.
‘Reasonable?’ he echoed quietly. Too quietly. ‘Is that what you call it, zvyozdochka?’
‘It is.’
Her voice was altogether too raspy for her own liking. And the name he’d called her that first night coursed through her as though it somehow made her his.
She took another step back before she realised how it might look to him. ‘You don’t agree?’
‘Damned right I don’t,’ he growled, taking them both another step backwards, until she felt the cold sea wall against her back and realised she had no further to go, and his arms locked down either side of her, effectively to cage her.
What was wrong with her that she found the whole thing so utterly arousing?
He wasn’t some knight, claiming her. And she certainly wasn’t a damsel in distress.
‘That’s my baby you’re carrying. You don’t have the right to “release” me from it as though I have no say in the matter. As though the baby has no right to a father.’
‘That wasn’t...’ She shook her head. ‘That isn’t what I’m doing.’
‘That’s exactly what you’re doing.’
‘No. I was just...’ She took a breath, trying to get her thoughts straight in her head before attempting to articulate them. ‘You said that I should have told you, and you’re right—I should have. I was all geared up for it the first couple of times I went to Care to Play, only you weren’t there.’
She stopped, giving him a chance to respond. Almost hoping that he would say something to explain it, but he didn’t. Yet his expression had altered and her heart tumbled.
She was right. He had been avoiding her.
‘You were always there before we had that weekend together,’ Saskia whispered, with no idea how she managed to stay upright, to seem confident, when inside she was crumbling like a sandcastle on the beach under the onslaught of the incoming tide. ‘But after that weekend you were never there. At least not when you knew I would be. As though you were avoiding me...’
And still he didn’t answer. He didn’t even move. If she hadn’t known better she might have thought he’d turned to stone.
She didn’t want to hear the answer—she didn’t need to hear it. She already knew the truth. Still, she couldn’t stop the question from slipping off her lips.
‘Were you avoiding me, Malachi? Were you so concerned that if I saw you at the centre again I’d take it as some sort of sign that we were in a relationship?’
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