Valentine's Day. Nicola Marsh
he stepped up behind her. ‘But not all of it. I can see where you’re going, Georgia. Working your way to assuming I slept with you out of guilt.’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘No. I slept with you because it was inevitable. I’ve been wanting to since we met.’
She slanted a look back up at him. ‘It’s not some twisted Year of Georgia loyalty-programme bonus class?’
His smile rivalled the sunrise. And his chuckle warmed her from the inside out. Even as she fought it. ‘No. Though that suggests you learned a thing or two.’
She blew at the curl that hung over her eyes. ‘You have no idea.’
He nodded slowly. She felt it against her back. ‘Me, too.’
Well...this was awkward.
‘So, the fifty grand was about guilt, but the sex is about...sex?’
It was stupid to hope for more. But it wouldn’t be the first time her heart and her head had operated in opposition. The secret, foolish desire that she would be the one woman who he wanted more from.
His eyes shadowed over briefly. ‘The fifty grand was about keeping us both out of court for breach of contract.’
And the nine hours of intensive loving...?
He lowered his voice, given the proximity of the pilot. ‘Last night was about you and me and this amazing place,’ he went on. ‘And the attraction that’s been distracting me so much for the better part of half a year.’
That sounded a lot like... ‘Scratching an itch?’ It sounded as awful as it felt.
He sighed heavy and hard behind her. ‘Medicating a burn.’
If she needed any clue that they’d be going back to their London lives—separately—on Monday morning, that was it. You only medicated something you wanted healed over.
Zander hadn’t promised her more. She’d made her decision last night despite knowing that. So she had no grounds for complaint.
‘Up ahead,’ the pilot said with the best timing.
They both forced their eyes onto something other than each other and Georgia gasped as they descended amongst a field of giant, jagged pillars that stretched skywards, strong and masculine and potent.
Just like the man behind her.
‘This is extraordinary,’ Zander breathed, his eyes fixated on the ancient geology as their balloon bobbed amongst others over the natural wonder.
This whole weekend had been extraordinary. Living her dream just being here in Turkey, then, overnight, immersed in heaven with Zander.
But extraordinary in a bad way, too. Unravelling the origin of his anti-marriage sentiment and discovering firsthand how that was going to impact on her. No wonder he wasn’t interested in risking himself again.
Zander Rush liked to take holidays from reality. But they were only mini-breaks.
First Hadrian’s Wall and now Göreme. Every time they got away from London he was like a different man; he let himself indulge the attraction between them and be someone totally different from everyday Zander. Someone who communicated. Someone who laughed. Someone who loved.
Except it wasn’t love. It was medication.
As though his connection to her was something he needed to be cured of. A temporary ailment.
Back in the real world, Zander took care to pack himself carefully away—in his big empty house, on his epic, solo marathons, in his expansive plush office. He kept everyone at arm’s length. Absolutely by design.
Georgia stared out, letting the verbal spiel of the pilot wash over her: about the people of Cappadocia, about the heritage. She could hear it later on Zander’s recorder. It was hard to be in this prehistoric place that had seen war and famine and death and entire civilisations come and go and worry about one man’s feelings for one woman.
It seemed so trivial.
But she was that woman. This was her life. And so it wasn’t trivial at all. The Year of Georgia was supposed to have taught her who she was. It was supposed to have given her a taste of what was possible and highlighted the deficiencies in her life. And it had worked.
She was Georgia Stone. For better or for worse.
Weirdly obsessed with plants, content to walk alone amongst Roman ruins, uninterested in cooking or wine appreciation or shoes, but a crack shot with a blank-pistol and the fastest code-cracker the spy school had ever seen. Terrible at the contrived sexy steps of salsa but a natural at the private undulations of belly dancing. A decent rower but a terrible swimmer. She was a lab rat and a loyal and ethical employee.
And she had a heart as protected and hidden as any of the seeds she X-rayed. But at least now she knew, without a doubt, that it was competent. That she was competent.
She was Georgia Stone. She would find her way.
And though she’d enjoyed the detour of the past few months, it dawned on her in realisation as blazing as Cappadocia’s sunrise that her way just wouldn’t include Zander Rush. He’d come into her life bearing the gifts she needed to find herself again. Perhaps his cosmic role was now complete and the last twenty-four hours were just the most amazing swansong.
This conversation, this day, was her marker. He wasn’t sorry about what they’d done but he wasn’t interested in more and he certainly wasn’t interested in for ever.
And she was.
It hit her every bit as dramatically as the Cappadocian landscape had. She wanted a for ever someone. Dan hadn’t just been about keeping up with her friends. He’d been about trying to build something lasting for herself.
She wanted someone to share her life with. To explore with. To commiserate with. She was tired of being alone.
But just anyone would not do. She’d had a taste of something spectacular—someone spectacular. That was going to be very hard to go back from. And holding out for someone worthy didn’t seem as scary after the six months she’d just had.
Her heart buoyed just like the envelope bobbing above their heads.
He was out there. She would find him.
But then, with the same sinking feeling that came with shutting off the gas, she accepted another hard truth.
She just wouldn’t find him in this balloon.
* * *
Stalling the inevitable was easy to start with.
First, there was the business of getting the balloon back down to earth, onto the back of the pickup truck, the air out of the envelope, and the glossy fabric rolled up and stowed in the gondola. Then, there were too many ears in the bus that drove them back to Göreme to do more than smile politely at each other. Once back in the hotel, the exhaustion of twenty-four sleepless hours had claimed them both and it wasn’t too hard to convince Zander that she wanted the comfort of her own room and shower for a very necessary few hours of shut-eye.
When all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep in the circle of his arms.
But now it was late afternoon and Zander stood at her door, an optimistic bottle of wine in his hand.
‘Right now?’ He gaped.
‘My flight leaves in three hours. A car’s coming for me soon.’
The wine sagged towards the stone floor. ‘Why?’
‘Emergency at work,’ she lied.
He lifted one brow. ‘A seed emergency?’
Defensiveness made her rash. ‘I don’t remember signing anything that gave you say over what I do with my private time.’
He didn’t bite, though he