Page 22 of The Truth Serum
And that was just the beginning of the things that had cemented their friendship.
Still, there had been good times with Fletcher, especially that first year. And in the walk back to the house, Fletcher brought up the best ones. Which meant Ras was smiling when they made it back onto the street, and chuckling when they entered his home.
Then they both saw the disaster in his front foyer.
Chapter Six
No, no, no!After a decade of dreaming about reuniting with Becca, Nate couldn’t let her run away from him! He shot to his feet, cursing the pain that burst through his consciousness with every step.
“Becca! Becca, please!” he called as he rushed after her. It wasn’t fast enough, damn it, but she slowed in the foyer. He wanted to believe it was for him, but he saw her peering out the door for her carriage.
Thank heaven it was nowhere to be seen. He had a few seconds yet before she fled.
“Becca, please just talk to me.”
She whipped around to face him. “My name is Lady Rebecca!”
He winced. She wanted to be on a formal basis with him. She wanted to put barriers between them when he wanted…everything from her. Just as he wanted to give her everything he had.
Well, “everything” included polite respect.
He dipped his head. “Yes, of course, Lady Rebecca. My apologies.” God, the formal words tore at his throat, but if this was all he could have of her, then he would take it. With gratitude.
“Lord Nathaniel,” she said through gritted teeth. “Please remove your hand from my person.”
He looked down, a little startled that he had grabbed her elbow to keep her close. He wasn’t gripping her tightly. Last thing he wanted to do was give her bruises. And yet, it still took a conscious effort of will to open his hand.
“I apologize,” he said. “I’ve done this badly. I’ve been thinking of this for ten years and have stored up so much I want to say. Please, can we not speak as we used to? Like old friends who…” He swallowed as he searched for the right words. “Who care about each other.”
Her expression shifted through a myriad of emotions. He saw pain and fear. He thought there might be a softness in her, but it was quickly suppressed along with everything else. By the time she spoke, her words were coolly formal.
“Lord Nathaniel, we do not know one another. The… the child you once knew is long gone. The woman who stands before you is a stranger.”
“Then let us speak as strangers meeting as if for the—”
“No!”
The word burst out of her in pain and fury. And God, how that hurt. In the past ten years, he’d imagined their reunion a thousand different ways, but not once had he thought she would refuse all communication. That she would reject him so soundly.
He swallowed down the pain and pushed through a single raw question.
“Why not?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If everything that… if we are to ignore everything that happened when we were younger, then why—as adults—can we not speak? I am as aristocratic as you. We travel in the same circles. I am a man in search of a wife, and you are a woman in search of a husband. I have no debts nor noxious habits. And my best friend—the Duke of Harle—appears to be friends with your brother. Therefore, why am I so objectionable to you?”
He could see her jaw work, tightening and releasing. More telling still, her hands twisted in their reticule. “Fletcher says—”
“Do not parrot your brother’s words to me,” he said, his voice cold. “You and I both know that he is not objective. Tell me from your own experience how I disgust you.”
She looked away. “It is not disgust.”
“Isn’t it?” he pressed, his voice softening. “Your hands are pressed tight into your belly. How do you feel?”
“Nauseous.”
He reached up, wishing to touch her. Aching to caress her cheek and somehow soothe her. But he held back. “How can I fix this?” he whispered. It was the one question that had reverberated through his thoughts for ten years. How could he repair the damage between them? How could he prevent her father’s death, find her again in a hayloft or a ballroom, and let her know how much she meant to him?
