Chapter Five
Beth
I’m very, very good at denying myself.
His words confuse me. What is he denying himself? His gaze is direct, his eyes sparkling, but that might just be from the whiskey. He sends such conflicting signals. On one hand, I’m convinced he likes me. Call it a girl’s sixth sense. But on the other hand, he acts in ways I can’t make out at all.
I look around, thinking. A morepork hoots a few times from one of the trees in the garden.
Orion shines down on us through the window to my left, while the moon shimmers over the sea in front of us.
The room smells masculine, a blend of Archer’s cologne and whisky.
There are no signs of a woman here like there are in my house—no magazines, hairbrushes, bottles of perfume and nail varnish, scrunchies, or colorful throws and cushions.
He’s tidy, which I like. It speaks of an ordered mind.
Jude’s brain is like a maze, full of twists and turns, hidden nooks, and dead ends.
It seems impossible to find the center, and if you do, you know you’ll never discover the way out.
But I imagine that Archer’s mind has intersections, traffic lights, and roundabouts, and his thoughts process around it in a timely fashion.
I like that, too, because mine is the same.
Well, if the whiskey has lowered his guard a bit, I might take the opportunity to ask a question that’s been bothering me.
“Can I ask you something?” I rest my warm cheek against the cool glass.
He sips his whiskey. “Sure.” His hair is ruffled and sticking up at the front. His eyelids have dropped to half mast, and his posture is relaxed and open. However, I can’t imagine that, even when he’s drunk, he lets down his barriers, so he might not answer me.
“Why haven’t you asked me to come and work at PAWS?” I’d promised myself I wouldn’t ask, but the wine has loosened my tongue.
He doesn’t say anything. He just studies me thoughtfully.
I swallow hard. “I’ve listened to you, Cullen, and Isla talk about setting up the therapy center for ages.
You’ve even discussed what staff you’re thinking of approaching at the Ark in front of me.
But you’ve never asked me. And… it stings, a bit.
I’d love to help. I think the idea of animal-assisted therapy is fantastic.
It would be great to be there at the beginning.
But you’ve never asked.” I stop, conscious of the words spilling out of me like frozen peas from a bag, rattling all around the room.
My voice is too loud, the tone too demanding.
He moves his glass, swirling the whiskey over the ice, but he doesn’t take his eyes from mine.
Eventually, he says, “You know why.”
They’re the same words he used when I asked why he didn’t want to touch me. I frown. “I don’t, that’s why I’m asking.” How can I make him understand how I feel? “I thought we were friends. We work well together, don’t we? Why don’t you want me there?”
He finishes off the whiskey in the glass and puts it on the table. Then he leans back again.
Usually, there’s something about him that makes me feel as if he’s wearing a suit of armor. A sense of burden and being weighted down. Of restraint and defensiveness. Right now, though, I can sense that he’s taken that armor off. There’s something in his eyes—a lightness. A freedom.
He keeps his gaze on mine. “What do you think I meant when I said I didn’t want to touch you because you were Jude’s girl?”
“That you didn’t think it was polite to touch your best mate’s girlfriend.”
He runs his tongue across his top teeth. “That’s only partly it.”
I’m getting frustrated. My hazy brain is struggling to process the meaning of his words. “I don’t understand.”
“Beth…” He says my name patiently, the word soft in his mouth, tender. “I don’t touch you, and I haven’t asked you to join me at the Ark, because you belong to Jude.”
My heart bangs on my ribs, each beat making my whole body shudder.
“I want to touch you,” he continues. “And I want to ask you to work with me so I can see you every day, because I hate it when we’re not together. I miss you, and every minute we’re apart feels like an hour. I’m in love with you. But I keep my distance, because you’re dating my best friend.”
His gaze is open, honest, and rueful. He means every word.
I’m stunned. I actually thought it was possible he didn’t like me that much, and he hadn’t asked me to work with him because he didn’t particularly want me around.
He’s in love with me?
It’s so shocking that I feel as if a tsunami has risen from the ocean, thundered up the beach, and crashed over my head.
It washes the alcohol mist away, and suddenly I’m seeing clearly for the first time.
The way he calls in often and stays to chat, even when Jude isn’t on shift.
Why he hasn’t dated much since I’ve known him.
His careful, restrained manner around me, which I’ve noted because he’s so open and relaxed around everyone else.
And the way his eyes met mine on New Year’s Eve across the dance floor.
I didn’t imagine it, and now I understand.
He was watching me dance with Jude, and the expression on his face before he walked away was jealousy.
He waits for me to say something. When I just continue to stare at him, my brain whirring like a centrifuge, he tips his head back and looks up at the ceiling for a long while.
Eventually, he lowers his head again, massages the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, and sighs. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
He lowers his hand. “It’s not. I told myself that wasn’t why I was bringing you back here tonight. You’ve had an argument with your boyfriend, and you’re raw and vulnerable, and this is the last thing you need.”
I finish off my wine and put the glass on the table. “He’s not my boyfriend anymore.”
“Don’t say that.”
“He’s not. He broke up with me, and I thought I’d be devastated, and I’m not. I’m relieved.”
“You’re going to tell yourself that because you’re hurting and your brain wants to comfort you, but in the morning—”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me,” I say softly.
He stops immediately.
We study each other for a while. I know he’s worried I’m thinking with my heart, but I’m not. I feel clear headed and in control. In fact, I feel as if someone’s come along and sprayed the outside of my eyes with glass cleaner and polished them until they’re completely smear free.
“You’re in love with me?” I ask.
He drops his gaze for a moment, then lifts it again to mine. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes answer for him.
“You should have told me,” I whisper. I say it, but I know why he didn’t. There’s no way Archer would ever make a play for another man’s girl, especially his best friend’s. Instead, he’s wanted me from afar, loving in silence, worshiping in secret.
Sometimes when I’m stressed, my heart develops an arrhythmia—an ectopic or premature beat, making it feel as if it’s stuttering. It’s doing it now, and I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm it.
All those times my mind has strayed to him, when I’ve been alone, just for a few seconds, when I’ve let myself think about him, imagine what it would be like to be with him…
they all come flooding back. We’ve fought it for a long time, but this moment feels inevitable, as if we were on two roads that were always going to converge, or two orbits that were destined to collide.
Slowly, I pick up the bowl of chips and put it on the table.
I unfold my legs and lift my arms, stretching my body.
I didn’t mean to do it in a sexual way, but immediately I’m conscious of his gaze on me.
He might still be fighting his attraction, but for once he lets his desire roam free.
His gaze brushes over me like a sirocco wind, and my body stirs in response.
Lowering my arms, I shift on the sofa, moving partly onto the center cushion. Then I stop, facing him, and I meet his eyes.
He looks at the cushion, at how far I’ve moved, then lifts his gaze to mine again.
“You have to meet me halfway,” I say.
He gives a short laugh and looks away, out to sea.
I wait. Archer is not impulsive. He’s a man who needs time to weigh the pros and cons of a decision.
He looks as if he’s admiring the view, but I know that he’s considering the various aspects of this, discarding some fears, adding new ones to the pile, weighing up one action against another, and no doubt over-analyzing himself until he hasn’t a clue what he thinks.
I have no doubt at all that his main thought is ‘my father would never have told her.’ He feels as if he’s let himself down with his admission.
He put himself first for a few seconds, and now he’s kicking himself because he can’t go back.
He’s changed us, our relationship, on a molecular level, like breaking an egg into flour and baking it into a cake.
We can’t separate the ingredients anymore.
We’re now a Victoria sponge, or a chocolate brownie, and that can’t be undone.
The analogy tickles me, and I laugh.
His gaze comes back to mine, and he lifts an eyebrow. “You’re enjoying this,” he scolds.
I shrug. “A little.”
He rests an arm along the back of the sofa. He doesn’t move his body, but it is a move toward me. It’s a start.
“I was mentally comparing you to a chocolate brownie,” I say.
His lips curve up. He knows how much I adore them.
He sighs then, and I feel a twinge of sympathy, because I can see how torn he is.
“Do you ever get tired of doing the right thing?” I murmur.
His gaze slides to my mouth—he’s thinking about kissing me. “Sometimes.”
I deliberately moisten my lips with the tip of my tongue, and watch his expression turn helpless.
“Don’t you want me?” I whisper.
His eyes widen.
I tip my head to the side, amused. “Do I need to seduce you, Archer? Because I can, if that’s what you want.”
His brows draw together.