A Dream Christmas. Кэрол Мортимер

Riley stated, shaking her head. ‘Neither statement is good enough to get me to stay.’

      ‘Then what the hell do you want?’

      ‘I want morel’ Riley shouted. ‘Just give me a valid reason not to go!’

      James cursed, stood up and paced the room. ‘I don’t know what you need to hear! We have phenomenal sex together; isn’t that enough? Obviously, by that scornful look on your face, it’s not! ‘

       Well read, Sherlock.

      James rubbed his hand across his forehead. ‘Okay, well, then, what about going back to what you asked me six months ago? If I have to, I’ll do the dating thing …’

      ‘You want to date me?’ Riley repeated, not sure if she’d heard him right. ‘If you have to?’

      Oh, this was bad. This was so, so bad, Riley thought … and I’m naked. Her heart was being diced and spliced and she was naked.

      ‘Toss me a shirt, will you?’ Riley demanded, holding the sheet to her bare chest. She caught the T-shirt James threw and quickly pulled it over her head. When she was adequately covered, she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

      ‘I don’t want you to date me because you have to—I want you to want to be with me.’ Riley bit her bottom lip. ‘Why is us being together always so damn hard?’

      James sent her a hard look. ‘It wasn’t once and you were the one who walked!’

      ‘And you’ve never forgiven me for it!’ Riley shouted. ‘I was nineteen, James, and so scared!’

      ‘Of what?’ he demanded.

      ‘I was so young and naive with it. You were sophisticated and educated—how long would it have taken for you to become bored of me? Six weeks; six months? I would’ve given up everything, all my dreams for you and been left with nothing!’

      ‘You never gave us—me—a chance!’

      ‘And you never gave me a chance to grow up, to change my mind. You never contacted me once when I was overseas, not by e-mail, social media, not a phone call—nothing! I thought that maybe when I came home—nine months later—we might have a second chance but, when I did, you had already moved on to Liz, moved in with Liz! So forgive me for doubting how much you wanted me, how much you’ve ever wanted me!’ Riley told him, her chest heaving. ‘God, James, I have loved you since I was eight years old … Why don’t you just kick me in the teeth while you’re at it?’

      ‘You don’t love me …’

      ‘Aaargh!’ Riley shouted at full volume. ‘James! Really?’

      ‘You walked away from me. You walked away, Ri.’

      Okay, she’d explain it one last time. ‘I was young and scared and I wasn’t ready. And you ran from me to that witch and that hurt me. I loved you enough to be happy that you were happy and then you dumped Liz and then you dumped every single woman you dated after her. And boy, there were a lot, James. All gorgeous, all tall, all stacked, all from your snobby social circle. And you never, not once, seriously looked at me again.’

      James frowned, utterly confused. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

      ‘If they couldn’t hold your attention then I didn’t stand a chance, being short and a redhead and from a middle-class background.’

      ‘That is such a load of crap! I dated those women because I could never fall in love with them. Because they weren’t you! Because there’s only been one woman for me since I was twenty-four and you are it!’

      ‘Yet all you want to do is date me,’ Riley said quietly.

      James sat on the side of the bed, his thigh next to her knee. He looked at his hands and Riley watched the emotions play across his face. Confusion, sadness, a lot of despair. ‘I don’t understand love, Riley. I can’t get a handle on it and it has too much power over me to play around with it. I was falling in love with you and you left. I came to love Liz and she lied and cheated on me, stole over a hundred thousand dollars from me,’ James stated in a flat voice. ‘And, when I found out, I broke it off and she decided to sell the whole sordid story to the press. It was such an ugly letdown, such a public failure. And she didn’t have half the power over me that you do.’

      Riley hauled in a deep breath, sadness sucking her lungs against her ribcage because she knew that they were finally over. She couldn’t fight this—it was too big. ‘I always thought that we couldn’t be together because it was the wrong time, but it’s not. It’s because you’re too scared to take a chance. And I understand that—I do. I did the same thing. But I was young and naive and I’ve regretted it every day since. You want to know why I’m going? I’m leaving because I was lonely and because I wanted a new start, because I couldn’t live in the city knowing that you were in it but not in my life. Now I have to leave because I am so in love with you, but you aren’t prepared to risk your heart on me.’

      ‘Can’t we just take it slow, see where this goes?’ James begged.

      ‘That’s not going to happen. Essentially, you wanting to “date” me is a flowery way of you saying that you want to keep sleeping with me without risking your heart. Well, stuff that—my heart has always been on the line and if you want me then it’s time you put yours on there too!’ Riley told him, eyes flashing.

      His head jerked back as if her words slapped him in the face. ‘You want me? Well, I’m not going to make this easy for you!’ Riley twisted her lips. ‘You, the big badass diamond CEO, scared of love, scared of what you don’t understand! Just happy to have a fling with the one woman who has always understood you just because you’re petrified of feeling anything, of life and of living … of loving me! Of failing at love! ‘

      Riley leaned forward and drilled him in the chest with her finger. ‘It’s so clear now—you only made a move on me after weddings and funerals, when your wall started crumbling thanks to a couple of drinks. Now you want to “date” me because it’s the only way you can be with me but allow those walls to stay up around your heart!

      ‘Your offer sucks and, yeah, it’s the final insult, James.’ Riley dropped her hand and bit her lip. ‘I’m done. This time, I promise you, I’m walking away for good. I’m going to start a new life in a new town and maybe one day I’ll find someone else to love, someone brave enough to love me. Because I won’t be too scared to fail and he won’t be too scared to trust me with his heart. And that’ll be because he’ll recognise that I’m loyal and trustworthy and because I’m a damn good bet!’

      Riley flung back the covers, scrambled out of the bed and refused to look at the only man who’d ever come close to touching her soul.

      ‘Riley—’

      Her heart stuttered as anticipation flooded her system. Maybe, just maybe, she had got through to him, maybe he realised that she was—they were—too good to lose. That—

      ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t be what you want.

      Yeah, me too, Riley thought, feeling her heart snap and then shatter.

      JAMES PACED HIS BALCONY, wishing that he was walking the lands at Bon Chance, where the air was pure and he could breathe. In his jersey and jeans, he was vaguely aware that it was another icy afternoon in New York but he’d been perpetually cold since his last conversation with Riley and feeling frozen, on the inside as well as out, had started to feel normal. It had been four days since Riley had walked out of his life and he felt that the sun would never shine again.

      Was this what depression actually felt like? He’d never felt anything close to this before, he thought, as he tucked his hands under his armpits. He couldn’t think of anything but her, work was a joke and food tasted like cardboard. When he’d dumped Liz, he’d felt angry and hurt—more angry than hurt—for months but he’d never