CHAPTER EIGHT
‘GRAZIE, VALENTINA. I’ve got it from here.’
Smiling easily at the housekeeper, Trip closed the door. He deposited the tray on the chest of drawers and then picked up the remote control and watched the curtains slide apart fractionally.
It was morning, and outside it was looking as though it was going to be another perfect day of clear blue sky and bright sunlight, made all the more perfect because Lily was in his bed, her long hair fanned out against the pillow, her eyelashes fluttering in her sleep.
He gazed down at her small oval face.
He still couldn’t quite believe that she was here. But when, finally, they had stopped kissing, she had taken his hand and led him through the house and up the stairs as if it were something they did every night. On the top step, she had turned to him, her pupils flaring as he’d stared down at her, and without speaking, without needing to speak, he had scooped her into his arms and carried her to his room.
Not to sleep. His body tensed, remembering the splay of her limbs against the white linen and the curve of her throat arching beneath his lips.
It had felt like a miracle so that he had been buzzing, but in a good way. All the tension and obstacles of the last few weeks dissolving into the certainty of their desire, so that, waking this morning, he had felt smooth and ironed out in the way that only sex with Lily could make him feel.
But that had all come later.
Before, while he had still been reeling from that feverish encounter beneath the trees, she had told him that what had happened in the woods was a one-off, not quite a mistake but a misstep, and it had punched a hollow in his chest, just like when he had found those letters. There was that same feeling of powerlessness and panic, and he’d had to walk away. Only he hadn’t got as far as Ecuador this time.
And it wasn’t a phantom Lily who had come to find him.
His chest felt tight or full, as if something were pushing against the ribs.
She was real, and this time when she’d taken his hand, she had led him out of the jungle inside his head, where instead of twisted tree roots and slippery rain-soaked ground there had been dark, tangled memories bookended by that expression on his father’s face.
He still wasn’t entirely sure why he had opened up to her. Or why it hadn’t been the sky-falling-in-on-his-head moment that he had imagined it would be, because somehow, despite everything he had done to her, Lily had made it easy for him to talk about himself, about the diagnosis that he had kept hidden for so many years.
She had listened in that careful way of hers and asked some questions, but she hadn’t tried to make out ADHD was a superpower or that it was something that needed fixing.
She had simply accepted it. Accepted him.
Chosen him.
An unfamiliar feeling pulsed across his skin, vivid, blazing gold and, suddenly needing to reassure himself that she still felt that way, he reached out to stroke her face. She shifted in her sleep, eyes blinking open, and he felt his body tense, nervous suddenly that the sunlight beating through the window would break the spell that had brought her to his bed. But then she gave him a small, sleepy smile.
‘Hi.’
‘Hey,’ he said softly as she looked up at him. ‘I hope you’re hungry. I had Valentina bring up some breakfast.’
The pastries were delicious, buttery and still warm from the oven and Lily ate appreciatively and with an appetite that surprised her. For weeks now it had been a struggle to eat anything, but all those knots in her stomach had simply disappeared.
Trip seemed easier too. There was still that pulsing energy humming beneath the golden skin, but the edginess that had seemed to cling to him like a shadow was gone.
And it wasn’t just that release of tension that followed sex.
It was as if something deep inside him had shifted, unlocked, opened. But then he had opened up to her, she thought, remembering last night’s revelation. She glanced over to where he was lounging on his side, his head propped up on his elbow, one finger chasing flakes of laminated pastry around his plate.
Not that she saw Trip as in any way defined by his ADHD. It would take so much more than four little letters to sum up the man in front of her. But it made sense of that fizzing energy and force that seemed to radiate from him. And there were other things too that were probably explained by the neurological make-up of his brain, like his impulsiveness and those sudden bursts of intense focus.
It was a part of who he was, like Lucas’ ability to hear music inside his head, and she could no more imagine Trip being any other way than she could envision the ordeal he’d had in the jungle.
And what had she done? Nothing. Not a thing. She had sat and stared at the news bulletins. But it was as though her head had been filled with mist. Everything had been muffled, except her own voice inside her head telling Trip that she wouldn’t care if he never came back from Ecuador.
Those words had haunted her for weeks.
‘I shouldn’t have said what I said when you left. About not bothering to come back. I never wanted that, but you hurt me and I wanted to hurt you. So I said things that weren’t true.’
‘You said a lot of things that were true too.’ Now he stretched out a hand and took hold of her wrist. ‘I was selfish that day, and thoughtless and I hurt you and I hate that I did that. I wish more than anything that I hadn’t done it—’
He meant the way he’d ended things, she told herself quickly, not that he’d ended things. Although it would be so tempting to think that was what he wished when his eyes were holding her captive and there was no distance between them any more.
‘I wish I could change things, change the past—’
She could hear the regret in his voice, and another note she couldn’t quite put her finger on. But she understood only too well the anguish of remorse and wishing to have done things differently.
‘Not all the past,’ she said quietly.
Her skin tingled as he looked at her for another long moment. ‘You’re a good person, Lily.’
She glanced past him to the clock by the bed. It was Tuesday morning in New York. The second Tuesday of the month. Lucas would be talking to his therapist. Picturing him, scrunched up in a chair, she felt the crushing weight of her guilt. She wasn’t a good person at all, but, unlike Trip, her failings were not in the public domain because her father had used his influence to make the mess she had made shrink to the point where the consequences of her actions amounted to little more than a talking-to.
‘Too good for me,’ Trip continued. ‘And I know I messed up your plans, so I’d like to make it up to you.’
‘And how are you planning on doing that?’
Her abdomen tensed as he leaned forward and kissed her shoulder.
‘I have an idea. But I’m open to suggestions.’ She heard the smile in his voice and when he lifted his face, she saw that his eyes were bright with a heat that she could feel inside.
‘Let me hear your idea first,’ she said quickly, shivering as he bent his head and kissed the side of her throat.
‘I thought I might take you to England.’
‘England?’ His mouth was moving lower and she was finding it increasingly difficult to form sentences.
‘We could fly there today. You could show me around Oxford. I know how much you wanted to go, and I want to take you. Would you let me do that, Lily? Would you let me do what I want?’
He was sliding down the bed and now she felt his warm breath above the cluster of curls between her thighs.
‘Yes,’ she said hoarsely, and then he was parting her legs and she arched against his mouth and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think because her mind was nothing but heat and hunger.
They arrived in Oxford the following morning.
After the open hills of Tuscany, the city felt hot and airless.
‘I forgot how many tourists there are in the summer,’ Lily said, gazing out of the window of the car at the people crowding on the pavement.
‘We’ll fit right in, then.’ Trip pushed back his fringe and pulled a ball cap onto his head. ‘We have a map too.’
She laughed as he produced it with a magician’s flourish. ‘I don’t need a map. I lived here for over a year.’
‘I know but it’s part of our disguise.’ He gave her one of those megawatt smiles then and she felt her heart contract. It would take more than a map and a ball cap to make Trip disappear into the crowd.
‘Our disguise?’
‘You have a cap too.’
The blue of his eyes was glossy and sharp and she was touched by how much thought he’d given to their visit. ‘Did Lazlo get these?’
That smile.
Trip was a member of the Diamond Club, and Lazlo, the club’s concierge, had quietly and efficiently arranged everything, including conjuring up a private jet, a car complete with driver and security detail, and a discreet, fully staffed home for the entirety of their stay. But then it was probably a work of moments for the man who had got Trip out of Ecuador and back to New York without so much as one news story breaking.
‘There’s nothing he can’t get hold of. That’s why he was the first person I called in Ecuador when I got to the village. He had a car there within an hour. But that’s kind of the point of the club. Their concierge service doesn’t just do your laundry, it can facilitate things. Legally, of course. Well, mostly,’ he added, and she felt her skin tighten as his smile reached his eyes. ‘Ah, we’re here.’
‘Is this it?’ Lily gazed up at the honey stone, three-storey town house. ‘I cycled past here every day on my way to college. I used to wonder who lived here.’
‘We do.’ Trip nudged her out of the car. ‘For the next few days anyway.’
The house was cool and elegant inside, but it was the views across the sun-soaked city that excited her most. If she stood on tiptoe she could just see Magdalen Tower.
‘Is it okay?’
‘It’s perfect.’
Trip was standing behind her now. ‘So, what do you want to do first?’
Her pulse gave a twitch.
‘This,’ she said softly and, turning, she leaned in and kissed his mouth, her body turning to flame as he pulled her closer.
It was early afternoon before they finally left the house. A sudden short downpour had emptied the streets and left the city gleaming in the returning sunlight. They wandered slowly, enjoying the languid heat and their lack of purpose, moving closer to one another as other tourists gradually emerged from shops and cafes to join them.
‘Impressive,’ Trip said, turning on the spot. ‘So this is your old college. We should get a photo.’
‘No, honestly, we don’t need to—’ she protested, but it was too late. Trip was already pulling her against him and holding up his phone.
With an effort, she tried to paste a smile onto her face. Over the years, and thanks to the numerous staged family photos required by a US senator, she had learned how to pose for the cameras, but she still found it hard not to stiffen. And even harder not to snatch the phone out of his hand, because photos were so unforgiving, and selfies were the most brutal of all. There was no softening at the edges. Every flaw was there in close-up.
And he would see it, and then she would see his pity...
She grabbed the phone.
‘Hey—’ Trip turned towards her, laughing, thinking she was messing around, and then his smile fell away, his eyes narrowing, and she knew that her face must be as tense and panicky as she felt. He hesitated, then took her hand, the one not holding his phone, and it was only when he began to gently open her fingers that she realised her fists were clenched.
‘What is it?’ And then when she didn’t reply. ‘It’s just me taking a photo. What’s the worst that could happen?’
She stared at him, her pulse jerking in her throat.
‘It doesn’t matter. I want to go back to the house—’
She felt light-headed, the misery in her chest suffocating her, but then she felt his arm slide around her waist, warm and solid, and he was steering her away from the crowds, leading her quietly and calmly across cobblestones into a park, where everything was quiet and green like the woods in Tuscany where he had come to find her, to hold her against him.
As he sat down beside her on a bench, some of the tension inside her started to soften. A light breeze lifted her hair and that helped calm her too. Or maybe it was the way Trip was holding her hand as if he were the one who needed steadying.
‘I’m sorry I upset you. Again—’
‘You didn’t.’
‘But something did,’ he persisted. ‘When I was taking that selfie.’
Trip watched her hands ball into fists. Up until that moment, it had been a near flawless day, effortless in a way he had never imagined any relationship could be, and Lily had been happy and relaxed in a way that he had never seen before.
And then she wasn’t.
He gritted his teeth. There had been so many days like this in the past when everything would be going well and then he would go too far. Take one risk too many. Forget to put on the brakes.
Except he hadn’t done anything this time. It was Lily who had changed the mood. Killed the mood.
And he still wasn’t sure why it had happened. One moment he had been leaning into her in the warm sunshine, feeling the light press of her body against his and thinking, Isn’t this easy? The next she was demanding to go back to the house, her eyes shuttered, her body taut like an archer’s bow.
‘Maybe if you told me what it was, I could help—’
‘You can’t. You wouldn’t understand.’
Her body tensed as it had before, almost as if she was bracing herself against some unseen threat.
‘I might, and, even if I don’t, I can still listen. Like you did.’ Her face softened a fraction but then she shook her head.
‘You wouldn’t understand because you look like you. And I—I look like this.’ Her hand moved to cover the slight bump on her nose.
He stared at her in confusion. ‘Like what?’
‘Like this.’ Her voice turned sharp and she typed something into his phone and then held it out with a hand that shook slightly and he stared down at the screen, his brain jamming in shock and disgust as he read the headlines that accompanied photos of Lily as a child, then an adolescent, right through to almost present day. A few were the right side of jokey. Others were cruel. Some were just barbaric.
No wonder she hated having her photo taken. His anger was heavy and jagged beneath his ribs.
‘Did your dad not stop these?’
‘He did.’ He heard the protective flare in her voice. ‘He tried. But it’s difficult. If you go after them, they just make out it was supposed to be a joke. And if you do get an apology, it just gives them a chance to resay or repost it all over again. It’s just better to ignore them and not give them any oxygen. That’s why there are fewer photos of me now. Because I’m careful.’
He felt sick. In other words, she kept a purposefully low profile. And he had dragged her into the spotlight.
‘Look, Lily, these people are inhuman. That’s why they’re called trolls. You can’t believe that normal people see you like this.’
‘You did,’ she said quietly. ‘That first time we had lunch, you couldn’t have made it any clearer that it was under duress.’
Was that what she had thought? His gaze moved from her high cheekbones down to her soft mouth and up to the bump on her nose. Her profile was not ‘classically’ beautiful, but she was a very beautiful woman. How could she not see that?
‘I was hungover and you were snippy with me, so I was snippy back.’
‘You only met me because you had to. You would never go out to lunch with someone who looks like me ordinarily,’ she countered.
‘How could I? All the women I know look exactly the same.’ Her face made it clear that he had simply proved her point. ‘Not naturally. They’ve had fillers and “tweakments” and surgery. But just because you haven’t, it doesn’t mean these photos are an accurate representation of who you are.’
‘How are they not accurate? They’re not some AI-generated content. They’re me.’
Shaking his head, he pocketed the phone and took hold of her hands. ‘They’re moments in time. It’s not who you are.’
The shape of her mouth made his heart feel as if it were being squeezed in a vice.
‘Is this where you tell me beauty is only skin-deep? Or in the eye of the beholder? Or that real beauty comes from within? That what matters is that I’m a good person?’
‘That does matter. And you are a good person.’
‘No, I’m not.’ She pulled her hands free and as she wrapped her arms around her stomach, it seemed to transform her from hostile to vulnerable. ‘I’m not. It’s just that nobody knows.’
He stared at her in confusion. ‘Then tell me,’ he said finally. Because he wanted to know. To prove her wrong. To take that haunted look off her face.
Silence.
His throat was tight and aching. Silence was his nemesis. He had got better at managing it, mostly by tapping, but he was too scared that one tiny movement would send her spiralling away from him for ever. Or perhaps he had already lost her, he thought, gazing at her still, tense body.
‘His name was Cameron.’
His shoulders stiffened. It was just a name but the way she said it made him want to seek him out and erase him from the face of the earth.
‘Do I know him?’
She shook her head. ‘I doubt it. We met when I came back from Oxford.’ Her mouth twisted and she was silent for a moment. ‘Sometimes I think if I’d never come here, it wouldn’t have happened. I got complacent. I had such a wonderful time just being me that I started to believe I was okay. You know? Acceptable. But then I went back to the States and I realised I wasn’t.’
‘What happened?’
‘I went to this fundraiser with my dad and I wore this dress and I thought I looked nice. Not incredible, just not—’
There was a tiny shake in her voice and he reached out and pulled her arm away from her waist, his hands seeking hers.
‘Did he say something?’ he said softly.
She heard the edge to his voice. ‘Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking.’
He felt his jaw tense. ‘What did he do?’
‘He was nice to me.’ Her fingers tightened around his. ‘I’d seen him around but we’d never talked, but I was sitting in this coffee shop a few days after the fundraiser, hiding really—’ She gave him a small, bleak smile. ‘He came over and told me that I was his hero. Then he sent this incredibly cutting message to this woman who’d posted a comment about my hair. Nobody had ever done that before. I was flattered.’
She took a deep breath. ‘That was kind of our first date. We started seeing each other and then one Saturday he invited me and Lucas to this party at the Colvilles’ house upstate.’
He nodded. He knew the house. Knew Ward Colville and his brother from school.
‘At first it was fine. It was fun. Everyone was drinking and I did too, but I knew I had to get back because I had a breakfast meeting with a client. Only Cameron was too drunk to drive. We all were, except Lucas. I knew he didn’t want to drive but I asked him anyway.’
He heard her swallow.
‘Cameron put the music on real loud and he was singing and I forgot about Lucas because it felt like I was in a film. Only then suddenly there was this police car. And I wasn’t worried because I knew Lucas hadn’t been drinking. But what I didn’t know was that Cameron had stolen the car Lucas was driving.’
Her hand moved to her face.
‘Lucas was arrested.’ The pain in her voice made his heart squeeze tight. ‘We all got taken to the station. It was awful.’
‘Why didn’t I know about this?’
‘My dad made it go away.’ She hesitated. ‘And it was about the time your mother and Charlie—’
He thought back to the days and weeks, the months after the accident. The whole world could have been on fire and he wouldn’t have noticed.
‘And Lucas?’
She bit her lip. ‘He’s not a lawbreaker. He was devastated. He wouldn’t leave the house. He stopped composing and then one day I came back from work and he was lying on the floor in his bedroom and I couldn’t wake him up.’
A tear ran down her cheek and he felt something wrench apart inside him. In answer to his earlier question, this was the worst that could happen. ‘I’m so sorry, Lily.’ He slid his arm around her waist and pulled her against him.
‘Afterwards, he said it was an accident. He hadn’t been sleeping well since the arrest and he was so anxious all the time. He told my mom and dad that he just wanted to stop all the noise in his head.’
He knew that feeling. When he was a child, it had been excruciating. At its worst, it had made sleeping, even sitting still, a torment.
‘But my parents wanted to be sure. That’s why they sent him to Switzerland. To the Galen.’
‘It’s a great clinic.’ Pulling her closer, he kissed the top of her head. ‘Carter’s brother did rehab there. That’s how I knew about Lucas. Carter asked me to go with him to collect his brother and I saw Lucas walk past a window just for a moment. I don’t think I would even have noticed him, but he was holding a violin.’
Her face twisted.
‘It was my fault. I knew Cameron was trouble. He was always telling lies. Stupid lies. Like once he left a restaurant without paying. He said it was a mistake, but he liked the danger. And I liked that he liked me because he was cool and good-looking and he validated me, made me feel beautiful. So I didn’t care that he was dangerous. Because I’m shallow and selfish and not a good person.’
‘Not true. You made a mistake and, sure, you have flaws, but you’re only here with me because you care so much about Lucas. Because you know he struggles. But those struggles are part of him, not because of you or something you did. You’re a good person. Better than good. Better than anyone I know, and, yes, that does make you beautiful. But so does this.’ He touched the bump on her nose. ‘And this.’ He ran his finger along the curve of her jaw. ‘And this.’ Her eyes widened as he stroked a loose curl away from her cheek.
She had clearly wanted to believe him, but it was harder than people thought to let go of the bad things, the things people said or did and how they made you feel. That would mean hoping things could be better and hope was a dangerous thing and his throat thickened as she covered her face with a shaking hand. Finally, in a small, bruised voice, she said, ‘You know, when we left the police station, I thought Cameron would apologise, but he didn’t. I was angry with him and upset. I asked him how he could do something like that to me. And he laughed. He said that it was never serious. That he had “standards.”’
The tears she had been holding back spilled over her cheeks now and, watching her attempts to control them, Trip pulled her close and held her close for a long time, letting her cry, pushing back against the hot burn of anger rising in his chest, wishing he had more than words to make her believe what he was saying.
Finally, her sobs subsided and she breathed out shakily. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘No, I’m sorry.’ Ignoring her attempts to hide her face, he tilted up her chin. ‘Listen to me, Lily. You were right, earlier. I wouldn’t have asked you out to lunch, but not because I think you’re not up to my standard. You were always so cool and aloof. I thought I wasn’t up to yours. I thought—’
He fell silent, and, looking up at him, she felt her chest tighten. He looked taut and unhappy, as he had that time when he’d sat at the piano in Tuscany. Only back then there had been an edge to him, a challenge, as if he’d been testing her with the truth.
Now he looked tired, as if he was shouldering some huge unseen weight, and she thought about everything she’d had to keep to herself and carry alone. How hard it had been. How alone she had felt. But Trip had helped ease that burden. She had told him the truth, every ugly detail, and he had said she was beautiful. Made her feel beautiful.
‘Thought what?’ she said quietly. His fingers tightened infinitesimally so that she could feel his pulse beating against hers.
‘I thought I would never be good enough. For anyone. But mostly for him. My father.’
There was another silence, and she made herself wait because she couldn’t lead him where he needed to go. She could only hold his hand as tightly as he had held hers.
‘But then I found these letters, and I was going to burn them. But they don’t feel like they’re mine to burn. I mean, he kept them for a reason.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You see, they’re from a woman. Her name is Kerry. She was his mistress.’
Lily stared at him in shock. That couldn’t be true. Theirs was a small, insular world but she hadn’t heard so much as a whisper of scandal in relation to Henry and Alessandra Winslow’s marriage.
‘Was it serious?’
Trip shrugged. ‘It went on for more than a decade, so, yeah, I guess it probably was. From the dates, I think they started seeing each other shortly after I was born.’
‘When did you find the letters?’ She hesitated. ‘Was it before he...?’
He shook his head. His eyes were hard and flat. ‘It was the day before I went to Ecuador.’ He took a breath. ‘It was why I went to Ecuador.’
The day he’d broken up with her. She could still remember it as if it had just happened. He had been angry, distant, spoiling for a fight and desperate to leave. And yet, in the end, she’d been the one to push him out of the door, too angry and hurt at the time to register the contradiction in his behaviour.
It was all too easy to imagine how he’d felt. Foremost shock, that sense of unreality and then the feeling of stupidity at not seeing what was right in front of you.
She felt Trip’s eyes on her face. ‘You know, the craziest part was that all I wanted to do was tell you. That’s why I came to your apartment. But then when I saw you, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say the words out loud because I had this stupid, irrational need to protect him.’
‘Not stupid or irrational. He was your father.’
‘He was.’ He was shaking his head as if to deny that fact. ‘But sometimes, a lot of the time, he felt like an opponent. And he was always the reigning champion and I was the underdog and nothing I did could change that. And I spent all my life trying to be his equal, to be worthy—’
The ache in his voice bruised her skin.
‘And then it turns out he wasn’t this perfect, unattainable being. He was just a man with flaws and weaknesses. And I was so angry with him for lying to me, to my mother, to everyone. For making me feel irrelevant and not good enough.’ His eyes were suddenly very blue. ‘For dying.’
‘Oh, Trip.’ She slid both her arms around him, feeling his pain. Because it wasn’t the trustees or the shareholders he wanted to impress, it was his father.
He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. ‘Only I took it out on you because he wasn’t there, and then I ran away because I knew if I stayed I’d do something stupid.’ His mouth twisted. ‘So I left and it happened anyway, because my head wasn’t in the game. And the whole time I was there I kept imagining that look on his face. And then you’d pop into my head and it would disappear. I think that’s why I kept thinking about you in Ecuador. You were a match for him.’
‘You were too. That’s why you clashed. Why Winslow’s profits have gone up twenty per cent since you took over.’
‘Until I got myself kidnapped.’ The skin across his cheeks was taut. ‘I proved him right.’
‘You proved him wrong too. Multiple times.’
‘But it was never enough.’
‘I disagree. I think your father was old-fashioned enough to think that the oldest son should inherit, but I also know that he wouldn’t have let his business be run by someone who wasn’t good enough. You don’t have to prove anything because he had proof. He chose you, not because he loved you, but because you are the best man for the job.’
Reaching out, he tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘You know that, do you?’ he said softly.
‘I met your dad, remember? I worked with him. He had standards.’ She paused and he knew that she was thinking about what that bastard Cameron had said to her at the police station, but then she gave him a small, tight smile. ‘High standards, and he wasn’t sentimental.’
‘Not in the slightest.’ His eyes fixed on hers and there was an expression on his face that made her scalp prickle.
‘And what about you? Am I the best man for you?’
‘Yes, you’re the best man for me.’ The only man. Her heart twitched and, panicking at the truth and stupidity of that thought, she rolled her eyes and quickly added, ‘Or you’ll do for now anyway.’
He smiled a little.
‘Is that right?’ He stared at her steadily. ‘I thought you weren’t going to do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘Talk. Hold my hand. Offer me a shoulder to cry on. Give me the best version of yourself.’ He reached out to touch her cheek, his thumb tracing the line of her mouth. ‘What changed your mind?’
Her heart was racing, mind turning over his words, over and over, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she did. He had changed her mind. Changed her. Changed everything. Rearranged the world into a place of possibility, filled it with light and laughter and love.
She felt dizzy, drunk, but she wasn’t drunk. She was in love. Helplessly, frantically, impossibly in love with Trip.
‘Oxford,’ she managed. ‘Being here made me realise that we’re in this together.’
It was the truth, part of it anyway. But there would be other, better times to say more. Better than now when the torrent of emotions stampeding through her were making it hard to sit upright.
His eyes were very blue.
‘We are. And I meant what I said before. I wasn’t expecting what happened between us to happen, but the truth is that I’ve never wanted any woman like I wanted you. Like I want you, now, all the time and not in spite of the fact that you’re different from those other women, but because you’re different.
‘You are beautiful, Lily, and I don’t mean on the inside. I think you’re sexy as hell and where you see flaws, I see authenticity. Because a diamond with a flaw is more beautiful than some perfect manufactured gemstone. That’s me trying to be poetic, just so you know.’
She smiled. ‘It’s a pity the shareholders aren’t here.’
‘I don’t care about the shareholders.’ He frowned as if he was surprised to find that was true. ‘I care about you. You’re with me now, and I’m going to keep you safe. I won’t let anyone get close enough to hurt you. I promise.’
It wasn’t love but it was enough for now.