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She shivered in the absence of his body heat. The familiar musk of their combined scents perfumed the air and burrowed into her lungs. Heaven help her, she’d missed the smell of him. She’d missed so many things about him.
Because she still loved him.
The toilet flushed and water rushed from the tap.
Nathalie kept her eyes shut as he returned to bed.
The mattress sank beneath his weight. He pulled her into his naked body and threw a heavy arm around her waist. “Do you want me to go to the other bedroom?” His voice was a quiet murmur in her ear.
“No.” Her fingers wove between his, holding him to her as she soaked in his warmth.
She’d given Ryder up once. For her father’s dream.
Fate had given her a second chance.
He might not forgive her, but she had to try. She didn’t want him next to her for one night. She wanted forever.
But first, she had to tell him why she walked away.
Chapter Twelve
Nathaliesatupandscooted back against the headboard, dragging the sheet with her. This conversation would be hard enough without being naked and vulnerable.
She leaned over to switch on the bedside lamp, then took a deep breath and stared into Ryder’s eyes, willing him to see the truth in hers. “I love you, Ryder. I don’t think I ever stopped.”
Rejection stiffened his muscles and that damned inscrutable mask slid over his face. Gone was the lover who’d rocked her world moments before.
He rose from the bed in a fluid motion and slipped back into his briefs. “Then why did you shut me out of your life?”
Her heart plummeted to her toes at the lack of emotion in his voice. The distance he’d put between them wasn’t only physical.
“I’m going to tell you why.” She swallowed past the growing lump in her throat. “And I hope, after I do, you can find a way to forgive me.”
Please, God.The rest of the prayer wouldn’t come, even in the privacy of her head. God knew what she wanted. Whether she deserved to have her prayers answered was another story.
She licked her lips, her mouth gone dry as a desert. “Do you remember, right before graduation, when you went out of town to attend to some family business?”
At his hesitant nod, she continued. “Your father called me. Invited me to lunch.” Her mouth turned down at the memory. “I had a feeling it wouldn’t be a meeting I’d enjoy—not after our weekend at Arborleigh—but I went anyway.”
Ryder’s eyes narrowed to chips of blue ice.
“What you didn’t know—what I didn’t tell you—was I’d spoken with my father a few days before. The DoD budget sequestration came right when he’d landed an Air Force contract he needed to keep his company solvent.” Dread was a rising tide that threatened to suffocate her. “I could hear the desperation in his voice. He needed those funds. He was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy.”
She held Ryder’s stare, a silent plea for him to understand. “It would have killed him, Ryder. He felt like he’d failed my brother. My mom told me he spent the night in the hospital two days earlier with chest pains.”
Tears threatened. She blinked them back fiercely. She wouldn’t play on his sympathy by crying. “I was afraid for my dad’s health. Desperate to help.”
“What did my father do?” Ryder’s voice was soft. Savage.
The meeting with Philip Montague replayed in her head. How out of place she’d felt at the exclusive club populated by old men who regarded her with a thinly veiled curiosity and a touch of disdain. A reminder of how out of place she’d be in British high society. The negative impact she’d have on Ryder’s social standing.
Then the Earl of Cannington had offered her the one thing she hadn’t been able to turn down.
“Your father knew, somehow, that my father was in desperate financial straits. He—” she swallowed her self-loathing through a throat gone tight, “he offered to bail out my dad on the condition that I break up with you and never tell you the truth.” The words rushed out in one long breath. “He got Oliver Winfield’s aerospace firm to offer my father work on one of Winfield Group’s NATO projects. Small contracts, but enough to keep Williams Advanced Avionics afloat until the DoD contract came through.”
Ryder stood, frozen in place like a Greek statue, disbelief etched onto his face.
Without warning, his icy control shattered. His handsome features twisted in fury, his hands bunching into fists.