Page 41 of Christmas Spirit
“I’m sorry, Georgie. I’m so sorry. For what I said, for how I was with you. It was cruel, and wrong. I was wrong, so damn wrong.”
Georgie tried to pull back, away from the man who’d hurt him more than anybody ever had before. He didn’t want Roland anywhere near him. He didn’t want to feel the weight and strength of his touch. He didn’t want to breathe in the faint traces of Roland’s musky, woodsy cologne. He didn’t want anything to do with the man whohadbeen amazing and beautiful, the man who’d madehimfeel like that, too, when all his life nearly everybody had treated him as nothing.
Until Roland had also treated him as nothing.
Socold, so cruel…
“Go away.”
Georgie pushed against Roland, but it felt weak and useless. He might as well try to push a mountain.
“Never.”
Roland shook his head, as with the pad of his thumb he wiped away the stream of hot, fresh tears. His touch sent a shiver through Georgie, the way it had the night before…
Georgie couldn’t help it, he just couldn’t, as he leaned into Roland’s touch, craving it as much as he had in the dark hours, when their bodies had been clothed in nothing more than the shadows and light cast from a fluttering, flickering flame.
No. No, no—
Georgie thrust himself away.
Fire and ice, that was what Roland was. Georgie couldn’t take it, not again, because it would break his fractured heart.
“You made it clear you thought what happened was a mistake,” Georgie said, summoning all his waning strength to say the words he had to. “But don’t worry, nobody will ever know because, like I said, I won’t be returning to Pendleton. You’ll never see or hear from me again, I promise. You can go back to how you were, as if nothing had ever happened.”
“Back to how I was? I couldn’t go back to that man, even if I wanted to. Everything controlled, every feeling tucked away, locked down and out of sight. It’s how I’ve been for years, but I haven’t always been like that, and I know that must be impossible for you to believe. But somebody, they—they killed something inside me, made me afraid to be the man I was before. I’ll tell you, Georgie. If you let me. If you give me the chance I know I don’t deserve. Please, give me a chance to explain, and if you still decide I’m not worth it…”
Roland shrugged. That small, one shouldered shrug that the night before had spoken of so much pain and anguish, that shrug that had compelled Georgie to reach out and kiss it all away.
“No,” Georgie rasped. “You don’t deserve it, but…”
“But?”
Georgie looked away from the flicker of hope in Roland’s eyes. Roland didn’t deserve it, he didn’t…but…
Georgie nodded.
Roland sucked in a long, broken breath.
“He—I won’t say his name, I vowed to myself never to say his name—was the kitchen boy.”
Georgie’s head snapped around to face Roland.
“Like me, you mean?”
“No. You and him, you could never be the same. God help me, but I know that now.”
“What happened?”
Cold fingers trailed up Georgie’s spine. Whatever had happened, it had broken Roland inside. And he had to know.
“It was a prestigious kitchen, in a luxury hotel.” Roland spoke quietly. He looked away, his brow scrunching hard as though he were in pain. On a long sigh, he turned his gaze back to Georgie. “I’d been appointed Head Chef, and it was my chance to make my name. I hadn’t told anybody I was gay although, looking back, I think everybody knew.” He huffed. “Half the kitchen staff were, so nobody would have cared. If only I could have seen it then, and understood… But I wasn’t confident. I don’t mean professionally, I mean about the man I was inside. I was an emotional mess, and scared of life. I don’t know why. My parents were loving, and I had a good childhood, so it’s not like I can blame Mum and Dad.” Roland shook his head, his laugh low and bitter.
“So, you and—”
Roland raked his fingers through his hair.
“I became obsessed. He set something alight in me. I—I told myself it was love,” he said, a deep red staining his cheeks. “But it wasn’t love. It was lust and hunger, and I fed on it like the starving man I was, to try and satiate the loneliness that gnawed at me. He saw that, he saw how weak I was, and he used it for his own gain.”
