Page 79 of Only Ever You

The shivers that curled down Bash’s spine and crept under his skin were like pinpricks of ice, a sensation tickling at the corners of his eyes.

After every single thing – every tiny detail and achievement, momentous or not – that they’d shared in the last decade, how could Faye have not told him this?

For the first time in his life, Bash couldn’t stand to look at her anymore.

* You are stunning.

24

FAYE

“You shouldn’t have followedme, Faye.”

The air around Bash felt like the split second before a firework exploded, yet Faye didn’t stop struggling to keep up in her heels and this tight dress through the house and into their room, shutting the door behind her.

“So you can be angry at me without letting me explain?”

Bash pivoted in the middle of the room. “So that I can calm myself down enoughforyou to explain.”

He wasangry – which Faye completely understood – and so far away in the few feet between them that if she tried to reach out, she still wouldn’t feel him. Not the tension cording in his neck nor the wall he’d erected around himself. The misery hacking away at his features lit by a lamp made him look older than he was, and fractured pain right through Faye’s heart thatshewas the reason.

She moved to the bed and sat straight down, back stiff. Feeling every inch of Bash’s gawp as he stared at her.

“I’m waiting here until you’re ready,” she said. “I can’t go to sleep in this bed with you with one of us angry.”

This explosive air was all Faye had felt as a child when her parents had arguedevery single night. She shouldn’t be able to remember it, but she did.

Though she didn’t often put her foot down, she wouldn’t let herself shrink, and she wasn’t going to leave until they’d talked things through.

Bash wanted space, which was fine, but she still wasn’t going to leave.

Raking his fingers through his hair, he closed his eyes, voice strained but measured as he paced in front of her. “Faye,please, just go back downstairs.”

Even when he was angry, he still couldn’t bring himself to raise his voice at her.

“I’m waiting for you to let us talk.” Though her hands that Faye slipped beneath her thighs, trembled.

They’d never had this kind of heated argument before. It was inevitable, given how Bash had found out about her plans to leave London in a way he never should have done. The words should’ve come from her mouth directly to him and not as some overheard statement. But it was too late now. Faye knew Bash would jump to all kinds of conclusions in his mind, which is why she needed to explain.

Staring at her like she was going to disappear, Bash exhaled a lungful of tortured air through his nose before he took himself off to the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

Faye exhaled and shuddered all over, calming herself as well before tears broke.

The open curtains portrayed nothing but darkness outside across the lawn and landscape. Minute after minute, she waited for Bash, thinking of everything she needed to say to fix this.

So much of her childhood could’ve been happier if her parents hadn’t ignored their problems, or realised four years after she was born that they were never in love, and never should’ve married, a lot sooner than they did. Rushing too soon was a risk she was never going to take for herself.

They were both happy now in their relationships, but Faye didn’t think that they realised just how much those unhappy years had messed with her mind.

All of her doubts about getting married one day came from them. Every harbouring thought that even the best of things would fall apart. Every reason for not wanting to leave this room and let the best relationship she had crumble to pieces, came fromthem.

And yet she was a fool for still wanting to love. Her heart was stuck in a war with her mind that said taking a risk on something long-term would only end in disaster.

The bathroom door eventually opened. Faye stood and forced herself to stay steady in these heels she could’ve perhaps taken off.

Tortured and conflicted was the only way to describe how Bash looked, but at least not as red-eyed as before. Like somewhere in that bathroom he’d washed some of his rightful anger down the drain, hair messy because he’d certainly pulled at it.

“You’re moving away for a year,” he stated from inside the doorway as if he didn’t want to get too close to her. He’d taken his jumper off which was balled in his hand, and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. For once, Faye’s focus didn’t drift to those inches of his smooth skin.

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