“How did you…?” she started.
He cut her off before she could finish. “You’re an immensely bad liar.”
She tensed for a moment then heaved a sigh but kept her silence.
Maybe (she hoped) she could wait him out.
“I asked you a question,” he reminded her.
Apparently, she couldn’t wait him out.
Sibyl remained silent. She’d avoided the “Royce Discussion” so far, she wasn’t going to court it now.
His hand shifted to cup her breast.
“Do I need to make you talk?” His voice was silky smooth and utterly dangerous.
She felt whirls of desire, and dread, spread through her both at the same time. The last time he did that… well, she didn’t want to think of that.
“No.”
“Then let’s have it.”
She hesitated and then said quietly, “I was thinking of Royce.”
It was his turn to tense but he did it better than her, mainly because his hand was still cupping her breast and the reflexive action caused his grip to tighten splendidly.
It didn’t last long before he released her, moved and turned away. She felt some confusion at his retreat before the dim light on the bedside table came on.
By the time Colin came back to her, she’d rolled onto her back and he looked down at her from his position on his elbow.
“Why did you do that?” she queried.
“I want to see your eyes,” he answered simply.
“I’d rather talk in the dark,” she informed him honestly.
Actually, Sibyl didn’t want to talk at all but, since apparently she couldn’t avoid it, she would vastly have preferred to say what she was had to say in the dark.
“I don’t particularly care,” Colin returned.
She gasped at his words. His face was hard and unyielding and she couldn’t understand it.
“I don’t know why this is such a big deal to you,” she grumbled, feeling her anger build and trying to control it.
“You don’t?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You kissed him.”
“It was you.”
His face went from hard to stony and his voice was a dangerous rumble when he reminded her, “It wasn’t me.”
“Okay, then, it wasn’t you but I didn’t kiss him,” she tried and his eyebrows shot up so she finished, “He kissed me.”
“It made you cry.” It was an accusation and somehow she was stung by it.
Because of that, she retaliated, “Well, it was beautiful. Beautiful enough to…” She saw his jaw clamp and the now-familiar, telltale muscle leap. “Colin, it was you…”
“It wasn’t me and we both bloody well know it,” he bit out.
She stared at him and then brought her hands up to her face, pressing her fingers into her forehead and beginning to count to ten.
He interrupted her at three.
“Put your hands down, Sibyl.”
She did, quickly, and just as quickly she shot upright, making him rear back to avoid her smashing into him. She hauled the sheet up to her chest, even though she was still wearing her father’s robe but somehow she felt vulnerable and needed its protection.
She wasn’t comfortable and she wasn’t happy.
She was scared.
More scared than when she walked to her front door and saw Mallory’s motionless body, more scared than when the knife was at her throat, more scared than anytime in her life.
Part anger and part desire to have her cards on the table and find out what he felt for her drove her to say, “Okay, Colin, you want to know, I’ll tell you.”
She turned to him and found that he’d sat up in the bed as well and she had to tilt her head up to look at him. Something made her pause, something that was missing, something that made her fear she couldn’t trust him with this, her deepest secret.
But she’d started and now, she couldn’t stop.
“All my life,” she began, her voice soft, “I knew in my heart, knew without a doubt, that I was destined to be with someone. That some great force, bigger than any human or deity, was going to guide me to that man. I told my family and all my friends. I had boyfriends but I knew none of them was him so I didn’t get attached, couldn’t, because I had to be free when he found me or when I found him.”
She took in a ragged breath and realised she was having trouble breathing. She pulled in all her courage and forged ahead.
“The years passed and he never came. Then I realised he probably wouldn’t. Every day he didn’t come, it broke my heart a little more. That’s why I moved to England. Because I was always at peace here, at Brightrose especially, I knew somewhere deep inside me that this was my place. And if I couldn’t have him at least I’d be home.”
She realised she was relating all of this to Colin’s bare chest and she glanced at him and saw he was utterly still and, even at her glance, he remained completely silent.
His eyes, however, were very alive, so active she felt they were reaching out absorbing her.
She tried to ignore it, shifted her gaze to the bed and continued.
“A part of me still believed but I was beginning to lose faith.”
She stopped.
This was the hard part. Her breath was coming rapidly and she pulled one in deeply and let it out through her nose.
“Go on,” Colin urged, his voice back to velvet and her eyes flew to his to find them warm and searching.
“Then I dreamed of you.”
His eyes darkened and his hand instantly lifted to cup her jaw tenderly.
“Sibyl,” he murmured.
She shook her head but didn’t dislodge his hand as it slid into her hair, lifting some of its massive weight away from her shoulder.
“I was sure, after that dream, that you were the man I’d been looking for all my life, even though I’d never met you. But it was terrifying because, Colin, in my dream, your throat is slit.”
His hand gently fisted in her hair, he leaned into her and rested his forehead against hers. “You never told me that.”
“It’s true,” she whispered. “I called Mags the minute I dreamed it. She thought it meant I desperately needed a lover.”
She watched his lips turn up.
“Then I met you, Colin, and you were so angry with me, you hated me and I didn’t know why, all I wanted to do was see your house.”
His lips turned down, his hand moved from her hair to glide down her back and pull her to him but she resisted, leaning slightly away, she tilted her head further back to look at him.