Page 44 of Undoing His Innocent Enemy (Hot Winter Escapes)

When he had woken this morning, to find her already up and keen to go swimming, he had assumed she had forgotten their argument. And when she had said nothing as they conducted their wake-up swim, he had convinced himself all would be well.

But as she stared at him now, her gaze probing, the questions in her eyes unleashed the intense emotion from yesterday all over again.

‘Were you talking about your parents?’ she said softly as she stroked his cheek. Coaxing, curious, compassionate.

He sat up, deliberately dislodging her hand, because he wanted so badly to lean into that consoling touch. And that would be bad.

He didn’t want to revisit that night. Not again. Didn’t want her to know about the fear that had broken him as a boy—and could break him again, if he let her in the rest of the way.

But as his mind raced, trying to figure out how to avoid her questions, how to deflect or ignore that look in her eyes, she added, ‘Were you with them when they died, Logan?’

He flinched and shook his head, but he could see she had caught him in the lie. Because her expression was suffused with sympathy.

He stood, suddenly too exposed, too raw. He headed for the door to the sauna. They were naked, sweaty, his groin still pulsing with the aftermath of his recent climax and he had few enough defences already when she looked at him that way.

‘It’s getting cold,’ he said, by way of explanation, even though his face was burning as he entered the changing room and began pulling on his clothes.

He concentrated on adding the layers necessary to return to the house, aware of her following him into the room, and silently getting dressed too.

As he tugged on his gloves, he could feel the guilty flags lighting his cheeks.

After getting rid of their snowsuits and outdoor layers in the garage, they headed up to the living area, and made their breakfasts—him a traditional Finnish porridge and her a bowl of fruit and yoghurt—as the tension and guilt knotted in his gut.

He stole glances at her as he stirred the thick multi-grain oatmeal on the stovetop, transferred it to a bowl and added slices of apple and a sprinkle of cinnamon, while she laid the table, and scooped yoghurt and frozen berries into a bowl then grabbed the coffee pot and poured them both a cup.

The domesticity struck him. And didn’t help with the panic. When had he become so settled, so comfortable with her in his space? Enough to know he would miss her desperately when she was gone.

She didn’t press him, didn’t probe as they sat to eat, didn’t say anything at all in fact. It annoyed him to realise he even missed the chatter she always used to fill the silence.

But something about her stoic acceptance of his refusal to engage in this conversation only tightened the knot in his gut, making each mouthful of the hearty porridge a chore instead of a pleasure.

She hadn’t looked at him directly, not once, since he had walked out of the sauna.

Did she believe he owed her this information, because when he had asked about her past, she had confided in him? Was this some kind of pay-off? Some unspoken rule in relationships he knew nothing about?

But they didn’t have a relationship, he told himself.

Except...

What about yesterday’s argument? Wasn’t that exactly what a relationship was?

Angry words? Charged silences? Broken promises? And then the inevitable make-up sex. Wasn’t what had happened yesterday very much like the little he could remember of his parents’ relationship?

Although, he thought miserably, when he had made fast frantic love after their argument, and held her in his arms, he hadn’t felt used, or bitter, he had felt calm, and settled... And safe.

He blinked, the porridge like cement paste now in his stomach.

But he didn’t feel settled any more, or calm, he felt agitated, on edge. As if more than just his control was slipping through his fingers—and he had no clue how to hold on to it.

Finally, he couldn’t swallow another mouthful past the thickness in his throat. He pushed the bowl away.

‘Yes, I was there,’ he blurted out. ‘I asked them to take me to the movie premiere that night,’ he added, remembering for the first time details he had forced himself to forget.

He had begged to attend the new dinosaur movie, so he could boast about it to all his friends at the boarding school he attended in Boston. He rarely saw his parents—their social lives a whirl of high-profile events linked to his father’s business interests and his mother’s position as a former supermodel turned socialite. As soon as they had climbed into the limo together though, he had regretted the impulse, because his parents had started arguing.

The porridge turned over in his stomach as he remembered the cutting words, the furious whispers as the car had driven through lower Manhattan to the event. And he had sat staring out of the window, watching the rain pour down on the stormy October night, seen the people scurrying to get home along the sidewalks as he’d wished he could be anywhere but inside that car. With them.

He had so few clear memories of them. How strange he could now recall in such vivid details his unhappiness with them that night...

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