This Man and This Woman by Lucy Gordon

Author:Lucy Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1995-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Gail saw Sylvia again the next afternoon. She found her cousin pale but determined not to budge. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“I feel like a different person,” Sylvia said. “I know so many things now that I didn’t know before. I should have realized it was wrong for me to get engaged to Freddie. You warned me against it.”

“I don’t think I exactly said that, did I?”

“You implied that I’d get the same sort of treatment that you did. Admit it. You weren’t happy about my engagement, were you?”

“Not at first, but—”

“And you were right. I should have listened to you instead of...”

Sylvia ended with a little choke. Her whole body became tense and she fixed her eyes on something she could see past Gail’s shoulder. Turning, Gail saw Alex standing in the doorway.

She had to suppress a gasp at the sight of him. He actually looked older. His face had a dreadful pallor and his eyes seemed sunk in their sockets. Gail had the impression that he hadn’t eaten for days. He was very still, glancing from one to the other, as though awaiting permission to enter. She still hated him, Gail told herself, but the sight of him ill and hesitant, so unlike his usual bulldozing self, tore at her heart in a way that startled her.

“May I speak to you?” he asked quietly, looking at Sylvia.

“Do you really need to?” she replied, holding tightly on to Gail’s hand. “It’s all over.”

“That’s what I need to talk to you about,” he said urgently, coming in and closing the door behind him. “It can’t be over. You have to marry Freddie.” Seeing Sylvia flinch and Gail regarding him with frosty irony he backtracked. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Of course it’s your decision but...” He took a deep breath and said with a shaking voice, “I’d better start again.”

“Very wise,” Gail murmured.

Alex gave her a quick look before saying to Sylvia, “I’m here to ask—no, to beg your forgiveness.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said hastily. “I should have looked where I was going.”

“I don’t mean that—although if you’d died I would never have forgiven myself. I mean the way I spoke to you. It was unforgivable....” He seemed unable to go on.

“I didn’t scheme to snare your brother,” Sylvia said simply. “I don’t want his money. All I ever wanted was him.”

“I know that now.”

But Sylvia shook her head. “No, you don’t. You think you believe it now, because of what’s happened—”

“No, I’m not just trying to put things right,” he said quickly. “At least—I want to do that, too. I realize that I made a big mistake about you...about everything. When I look at the devastation about me—Freddie wretched and hating me, Dad miserable—and think that I caused it all by being pigheaded and stupid—”

“Arrogant,” Gail murmured.

“What was that?”

“Arrogant,” she said louder. “Not stupid, arrogant. Mind you, arrogance is a kind of stupidity—”

Alex took a deep breath, as if controlling himself. “I didn’t come here to fight with you, Miss Rivers.

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