Page 93 of Settling the Score

Thank God.

She didn’t know what she’d do if he touched her.

Cry, punch him, or kiss him right back?

‘Got a sec?’

‘Well, we’re at a wedding, so, not really.’

He looked around. ‘As in, you’re busy right now?’

She held her hand out, as if to say, ‘what do you think?’

‘I just want a couple of minutes of your time.’

She clamped her lips together, trying to bite back the angry retort. ‘Why?’ she managed to snap out.

He grimaced, dragging a hand through his thick dark hair.

She looked sideways, towards the ocean.

‘Look, I need?—’

She felt his finger on her chin and startled at the unexpected touch, as he guided her face back towards him.

‘I need to tell you something.’ There was urgency in his voice.

She closed her eyes. ‘Please, don’t.’

‘It’s important.’ She heard the plea and ignored it.

‘It’s really not.’

‘I realised something last night, something I think I’ve always known but never wanted to accept.’

‘Don’t say it,’ she groaned.

‘I’m in love with you.’

She swore, the curse a bitter recrimination, loud enough to push a bird in a nearby tree to seek flight.

‘Damn you, Aiden,’ she said, with more control. ‘I said, I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Astrid told you.’

‘Yes, Astrid told me. And where the hell do you get off putting this on her, of all people, on her wedding day? This istheirday, not ours.’

‘I didn’t tell her, Blake did.’

‘And how did Blake know? You told him, right?’

‘We… were talking. I guess, yeah, I did.’ His frown was a deeply etched line in his face. ‘It kind of came out.’

‘Is that supposed to impress me?’ she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

His jaw dropped. ‘I’m not trying to impress you, Si. I’m trying to tell you that I realised last night, I don’t want to let you go. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and know I’m never going to see you again. I don’t want this to end.’

‘This? This?’ She scoffed, half-laughing, in a manic, deranged sort of way. ‘There is nothis,we both agreed to that.’