Close Your Eyes (42 page)

‘
Nothing
serious at all.
I just
suddenly realized how much I enjoyed being with her and listening to her voice. And when she walked out
of
the room, I already missed her,
Meg
. I couldn’t believe it myself,
and it was even harder to
admit it.
’

He didn’t
seem to
notice her shaking her head, desperate to negate whatever he was saying.
It
can’t
be the truth
!
H
er heart tightened painfully, her chest ready to explode.

‘One chat with a stranger
,
and suddenly we are not good enough as a couple?
That
was very
quick,
don’t you think?’

‘You aren’t listening,
Meg
.’ He spoke patiently
,
as if he
were
trying
to console a child.

He
can
afford to be patient,
Meg
thought resentfully,
and he
probably
had
the whole
conversation
prepared ahead of time with different options based on
my
answers.
Answers that couldn’t have been so hard to predict, given the circumstances.

‘
If
it wasn’t Alice, it would
have been
someone else.’ Ry
an
shrugged
. H
is broad shoulders
were
silver in the moonlight
, which cast a metallic, silvery light onto his
glistening
hair and illuminated
the strong, handsome planes of his face
like
a sculpture of perfect beauty.

‘She
just made it obvious, that’s all. Even though she hates the idea.’ His voice softened marginally as he mentioned Alice
.

A
nother
angry
stab of
pain
shot
through
Meg
’s body.
‘I bet she does
.
’
Her voice dripped
with irony. She remembered the other girl’s smile and soft voice,
and
she searched her brain
for something annoying
about
Alice
that would help
feed the angry fire inside her soul. She needed to hate her,
but couldn’t find anything to hate
.

‘I mean it,
Meg
. She noticed I was… well, interested and got all prickly and distant. I pressed on
,
and she admitted that she would never want to be the one to break up a relationship, given the fact her parents almost divorced over her dad’s infidelity.’

So he talked about this with Alice.
Megan’s hands were shaking.
All this time that
I was
so
worried about
our
relationship, feeling guilty ov
er innocent
interactions with
Matt
,
and
Ry
was talking
intimately with
another woman. Or more, if what he
’s
said so far
is
any inclination.
She felt physically sick imagining the two of them making out behind her back while she was absolutely oblivious to the whole drama.

‘I take you managed to convince her,
Ry
?’
She
would be damned if she showed him how deeply she was hurt. ‘
Let
me guess, it wasn’t all that hard, now was it?’

‘Actually
,
it was,
Meg
.
’ Ry
an
kept
his voice low. ‘Still is, to be honest. I wasn’t
one
hundred percent sure what I really felt until today, tonight…’

‘Well, you’re welcome.
I am so glad I could be of help to let you see the light.
’ She could
no longer
stop her tears from falling. Her
life
lay
in ruin
. T
he one and only man she
’d
ever loved
was
telling her he didn’t want her anymore.
She wondered if there was any point in trying to salvage her dignity.

‘No, sweetheart, it wasn’t like that.’ Ry
an
was pleading now, his eyes repentant. ‘
You
know it wasn’t. I just tried very hard to get back to
that
wonderful spot we had together for so long
that
I
can’t
even imagine being
anywhere
else. I am terrified, to be honest. Being with you is easy and safe, predictable and sweet. Out there is a whole new world
,
and I am afraid to go and reach
out to
it.’

‘But you will
. T
hat
’s what you’re saying, right?’ S
he stopped crying
and wiped
the tears
from
her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘
You
couldn’t find your way back into our boring, safe relationship, Ry.’

‘When I kissed you tonight
,
I really wanted to feel the way I did before.’
Totally honest, h
e glanced at her. She
had
to admire his guts,
wearing
his heart on his sleeve like that. He wasn’t
Matt
, after all.
Ry
preferred things to be civil and proper
. He kept
his mouth shut if what he had to say was offensive.

‘I didn’t. I wanted to make love to you,
Meg
,
and I would
have
if you
had
really wanted it
,
to
o
.’ He smiled at her softly. A thick cloud covered the moon
and shadowed his face
, making it almost impossible to read his features.
‘
You
can say whatever you want, but your heart wasn’t in it either,
Meg
. Tonight there
were
four of us in
that
moment. Tell me
I’m
wrong
.
Did you feel like you could really go through with it,
Meg
?’

While h
e
waited for her answer, the silence between
them stretched
into a long, explosive pause
that was
ready to snap at any moment.

‘
Still
, I didn’t go behind your back,
Ry
,
’
s
he said softly
. T
he wind cool
ed
the moisture on her cheeks. ‘
You
were planning on this… this new relationship with Alice while keeping me on the backburner, just in case it didn’t work out.’
Forgetting her flimsy heels, s
he got to her feet.
H
er whole being
was
concentrated on
the
moment that would destroy the one
person
she had built her life around ever since she was a little girl. Ryan
Harper
had always been her
handsome and wonderful
prince on a white horse. And she
had
thought she was his princess.

‘I shouldn’t be surprised
,
really.’ She looked down at him, still sitting on the bench. ‘
That’s
what I have always been to you, haven’t I?
Just
someone convenient and useful, ready to do whatever you said and whenever you found a spare moment to do it. No need to worry about
Meg
, she
’s just
there like a pair of old
W
ellingtons, ready for rainy weather.’ She tried to sound sarcastic and almost succeeded,
but
her voice
broke on
the very last sentence.
S
he was crying
again
, unable to remain calm any longer. Everything was ruined
,
and she was just wasting time trying to make him see how horribly wrong he was.

‘
Meg
, sweetheart.’ He had the guts to actually get up and take her into his arms
. T
he familiar strength of his muscular chest under her cheek cradled her
and only added
to her misery.
‘Look at me, please.’ His finger traveled to her quivering chin
. He lifted
her unhappy, wet face to his gaze. To her surprise
,
there were tears in his eyes
,
too.