feel sorry.’
She pressed her lips to his chest, as if her touch could heal his agony. ‘You have no reason to feel guilty.’
‘I didn’t protect my sister.’
‘You were a child!’
His beautiful mouth twisted into a cynical smile. ‘We weren’t allowed to be children.’
They stood for a moment in silence and then she lifted her head. ‘What happened to Jacob?’
‘There were expensive lawyers in sharp suits. They sorted it.’
So few words to describe such a hideous trauma.
‘But that didn’t make it go away, did it? You all had to live with that. Who took care of you?’
‘To begin with, Jacob. Then one day he just took off.’ In the dim light, his eyes shone a deep, glittering blue. ‘That was the day I really thought Annabelle might die. I guess she saw him as the one stable person in our very unstable family. She loved him so much.’ He gave a crooked smile. ‘Big mistake. If you don’t care, you can’t get hurt. Annabelle cared, and she got herself badly hurt.’
And not just Annabelle.
If you don’t care, you can’t get hurt.
That was why he avoided relationships. Not because he didn’t believe in love, but because he was afraid of love. He associated love with carnage, both emotional and physical.
‘You must have felt so lost and vulnerable, losing your father and then Jacob.’ Katie hesitated. ‘When you walked off the stage that night, you kept saying, “I have to warn Annabelle.” What were you warning her about, Nathaniel? What really happened on opening night?’
‘Jacob was in the audience.’
‘And you haven’t seen him for a while?’
There was a long silence. ‘I last saw Jacob twenty years ago.’
‘Twenty years!’ Katie couldn’t hide her shock. ‘You haven’t seen him since he walked out?’
‘We’re not what you’d call a close family. As reunions went, this one wasn’t exactly successful.’
Katie found it difficult to absorb. ‘No wonder you reacted the way you did—no wonder you walked out.’
‘I kept thinking about Annabelle. How his sudden reappearance would affect her. I just wanted to warn her he was back.’
So he hadn’t been involved in some complex love triangle. When he’d said, ‘He’s here,’ he’d been referring to his half-brother Jacob. And Annabelle was his sister.
When he’d walked off the stage, he’d been intent on protecting the sister he believed he’d failed all those years ago.
Her heart ached for the lonely little boy, hurt and abandoned by those who should have loved him.
The soft sound of the sea licked at the air and the smell of tropical flowers tinged the night with sweetness.
The stark contrast between the idyllic surroundings and his brutal, loveless childhood was acute.
His mother had left. His father had beaten him.
He had little or no contact with his family. No wonder he was hard and cynical when she talked about family. She winced, remembering all the things she’d said. Katie-land. She’d been insensitive. If she’d known …
‘Have you spoken to Annabelle?’
‘We exchanged a text.’
‘A text? That’s it? No conversation?’
‘This is the Wolfe family.’ His tone mocking, he reached out and picked a brightly coloured hibiscus from the profusion of flowers that crowded the terrace. ‘If our background taught us one thing, it was how to survive alone. A text is a lot for Annabelle.’
‘But you love your sister.’ She said it as fact, not as a question. ‘And Jacob—’
‘When I saw him in the front row of the theatre I felt nothing but uncontrollable rage, but those feelings were all mixed up with seeing my father beating Annabelle that night.’ Nathaniel stared at the flower in his hands. ‘I left without speaking to him. And I still don’t want to speak to him. It’s in the past. I don’t want to go back there.’
Instinctively she knew who was making those calls he ignored. ‘The two of you must talk.’
‘Talk.’ His tone mocking, he turned to her and slid the scarlet flower into her hair. ‘Katie’s answer to all life’s problems.’
Katie blocked out the sensuous stroke of his hands in her hair. ‘If you’ve never talked about that night, then surely it’s time you did.’
‘Why?’ His eyes were bleak and empty. ‘We can’t change what happened. We can’t change who we’ve become. It isn’t possible.’
‘But it is possible to change the future. And the present. And the way you feel about the past. You didn’t let Annabelle down—you wanted to help her.’ She tried not to feel disappointed as his hands dropped to his sides. ‘I’m glad you told me.’
‘Why? Because now you have a juicy story to tell the press?’
‘You know I wouldn’t do that.’ She reminded herself that he was raw and hurting.
‘Go to bed, Katie. We should never have started this conversation.’ He turned away from her, his broad shoulders forming yet another barrier between himself and the world.
Braced for rejection, she placed her hand on his back. The heat of his skin burned through his shirt and she frowned.
‘You’re burning up.’
He turned, his eyes glittering dangerously—a cold, fierce blue loaded with warning. ‘I don’t want your sympathy. Go to bed.’
‘Why? So that you can wallow and feel bad in private? I’m not leaving you, Nathaniel. You’ve tried dealing with this on your own. Now try the other alternative. I’m not walking away.’
‘Why? What is it that you want?’
She stood, poised and breathless as a diver on the highest board about to plunge. ‘I want you.’ She’d never wanted anything so much. She wanted it more than she wanted to protect herself. Because of that, the words were remarkably easy to say. ‘I want you.’
‘I’ve been offering you that all week.’ He kept his hands by his sides. ‘You rejected it.’
‘You offered me Nathaniel Wolfe, the actor. I’m not interested in him. I want the man. I want to know it’s real.’
‘You don’t want the man and you can’t handle real.’
Katie caught his arm before he could turn
