to care if something was taken away from me. Not since I was a boy. I’d shoved it right down deep inside out of sheer survival. I’d forgotten what loss felt like.’
Every humane cell in her body responded to that, totally overruling her anger.
‘I don’t want to be like him, Shirley. Controlling others to make up for something in myself.’
‘You’re not like him.’
‘Two years ago it finally dawned on me what I was becoming. The socially acceptable version of him. So I dropped out and tried to get myself sorted. I thought I had it beat. And then you looked at me that day in the tent the way my mother used to look at him. That awful mix of pain and love and resignation. And I knew I was kidding myself thinking I could manage it alone.’
Alone. Was he looking to her to be some kind of salvation?
‘I’m getting professional assistance now.’
Nothing he could have said—nothing—could have surprised her more. Not if he stood on the top of Everest and declared undying passion for her yak. ‘You’re in therapy?’
‘He’s an idiot—’ he brushed it off, shifting the angle of his crouch by her stretcher ‘—but he seems to know some things. We’re making progress.’
Given his budget, he probably had the best the country had to offer.
‘But I didn’t need Sigmund Freud to tell me why I was hurting. I missed you, Shirley. In my life. In my arms. In my business.’
He smiled, but she couldn’t match it. This was all too monumental.
Seriously, if she woke up on the side of some pebbly track with her Sherpa and the yak staring down at her she was going to just … walk off the edge of the nearest crevasse. And have a very unfriendly discussion with the God she was starting to get a sense of up here.
She got to her feet and he pushed himself up to stand in front of her. She stared up at him. Made herself say it. The bitterest pill.
‘You told me you could never love me.’
He dropped his eyes. ‘I told you I’d never be able to love you. Not the way you deserve. Not the way it is supposed to be.’
It was impossible to know whether it was just her air that got tighter or the altitude. ‘You let me believe it was me.’
‘I thought that was what you wanted to hear. Needed to hear.’
He was right. She had. She’d needed to hate him. She lifted her eyes and took a breath. ‘It’s too late, Hayden. I’ve moved on.’
His dark brows dropped. ‘On? To what?’
That was the problem with lying; ideally, you needed to have put thought into it. ‘On to … getting over you.’ Ugh. Lame. ‘I’m going to hold out for someone who can love me the way I need, the way I deserve.’
His colour dropped slightly. But then his eyes narrowed. ‘No. You fainted when you saw me.’
Confident words, but they weren’t matched by his tone.
‘It was the—’
‘No, it wasn’t.’ Stronger. Surer. He shuffled closer. ‘It was me. You still care.’
She clamped her lips together.
‘Shirley, you’re not that inconstant. And you’re too moral. You might have been trying to get over me, but you’re not.’
Pfff … ‘You’re so arrogant.’
He smiled. ‘Yet you still love me.’
She dropped her head and when she lifted it she left behind all her masks, all her pretensions. ‘Is this fun for you, Hayden, tormenting me? Is the ego stroke worth flying across the world for?’
His smile evaporated, his eyes darkened. ‘No, Shirley. This is not about my ego. This is about my … feelings. My heart.’
The discomfort was what gave him away. It showed in every crease and fold in his handsome face. Talking about this was excruciating for him.
He was serious …
‘Just say it, Hayden.’ Whatever he’d come here to say.
He looked around them again. ‘Not here. This is not how I imagined it.’
‘No. Here, or not at all. You don’t get to orchestrate every moment to your personal satisfaction.’ Not when it hurt this much.
Indecision flitted across his features. ‘Please, Shirley. Just step outside. Only a few feet.’
The plea was so honest and so earnest, it was hard to ignore. Fine. ‘Just outside. No further.’
He led her out into the bright daylight. After the darkness of the tent, the electric-blue sky half blinded her. She raised her hands to let her eyes adjust more slowly. It didn’t help when he turned her so that she was looking at him against the backdrop glare of the main peak of ‘Holy Mother’.
‘I need sunglasses—’ she started.
‘God, woman, you’re making this very hard.’
His tone clamped her mouth shut. He’d never, ever snapped at her like that, hissing with frustration. Even when they were fighting. But, for once, she didn’t immediately assume responsibility. Not everything was her fault. And that was a massive mental shift for her.
‘Just let me do this,’ he gritted. He paused, composed himself and then lifted his eyes back to hers. ‘Shirley … You were never going to be just casual for me. I was a fool not to see it coming. I was way too fascinated and intrigued by you.’
Everest disappeared. Her entire vision right now—her entire world—was Hayden Tennant.
‘I pushed you away and threw the gift of your love back in your face rather than face my own demons.’ He blew out a long breath. ‘I was terrified that I would hurt you even more if I stayed in your life. I even justified it that way to myself and felt quite the hero for doing the hard thing. I couldn’t have been more patronising if I’d tried. The truth is …’
He frowned and struggled with what came next but she couldn’t move for all the oxygen bound up in the snow-caps.
‘The truth is, I was scared to let myself feel. To care. Love and I don’t have a particularly good track record; my father’s obsession with my mother destroyed her, my love for her imprisoned me with him. I have no idea what loving someone safely entails. I was frightened that I would stuff it up if I tried. That I’d fail and you’d end up hating me. But you ended up hating me anyway—’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she murmured.
‘You must have.’
‘I wanted to, believe me. I couldn’t forgive you but I couldn’t forget you, either.’ She sighed. ‘And I
