Page 12 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
She shifted, going to reach for the drink on the table, but Corin moved at the same time.
Like it happened in slow motion, she watched as the backs of their hands brushed against one another, tingles flying up her arm and into her chest as his skin slid along hers.
Oh, God.
Emotion clawed its way up her throat, all of the tamped-down grief and everything else she had buried coming to the surface with a vengeance.
Without any mind to the noise, Imelda suddenly stood, the chair legs scraping against the floor as she stormed out, her heels like the staccato of her heart as she rushed out.
Away from Corin.
Away from the stares she could feel burning into the back of her head—or at least the ones that she imagined that she could. She had no idea. She wasn’t turning around to find out either.
She just needed—
Air.
Oh, she gulped it in as she stepped into the unoccupied gardens, her face awash with heat and relief so short-lived that she could have cried.
“Imelda—”
Oh, he’d followed her. She whirled about, her eyes narrowing as he approached, her name on his lips like some forgotten prayer.
“Miss Merrit,” she corrected with a snap. “You will address me as Miss Merrit. I do not know you, and you do not know me—”
“Imelda,” Corin pressed, his tone deepening. “I do know you. You do know me. This is ridiculous—”
“Ridiculous?” Her voice grew shrill as she took a quick step back, trying to put more distance between them. “Ridiculous is you trying to make conversation with me earlier. With you ordering me about as if you haveanyright. Ridiculous is you following me out here knowing that I was trying to get away from you!”
“Imelda, you’re being unreasonable—”
“Unreasonable?” Why did it seem she could do nothing other than parrot what he was saying? “Unreasonable is you coming out here to talk to me at all after you broke my heart so efficiently two years ago,Lord Salthouse.” She uttered his name like a curse, her teeth clenching.
Something flashed in Corin’s tawny eyes. A brief glimpse of steel, of something other than the apology and remorse he’d looked at her with thus far.
“If you’d let me explain,” he bit out carefully, each word more enunciated than the last.
Imelda hated that phrase.
He’d used it two years ago, too. Let him explain; he had an explanation. Nothing had been forthcoming, though. And as little as she had wanted to hear it then she wanted to hear it even less now.
“Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t tell me that you can explain away what you did. Don’t try and smooth this over. I already said—I do not know you, you do not know me. I doubt yourwifewould look fondly on you following me out here.” Or on them being near one another at all, if she knew. “I’m going to tell you once, Lord Salthouse, do not try to talk to me again. Do not try and make this into something that it is not. And donottell anyone about our history together, whatever way that you wish to spin it.”
Her chest heaved as she finished speaking, her heart thudding unevenly in her chest at the way that Corin slowly looked her over.
“Is that all?” he asked, his voice dangerously silky.
“Yes. That is all I want from you,” Imelda lied.
She didn’t wait to see how he took that either, turning on her heel again and storming back the way she had come with as much grace as she could muster.
Walking away from him hurt. It burned. It festered.
But she knew that she needed to.
And she knew that her heart was being torn right back out of her chest every step of the way.
Chapter 4
