Page 44 of Tears of Ink

“We aren’t friends though, are we?” He twists his glass around, his long fingers rolling it this way and that.

“Well, no.” As cryptic as he’s been so far, there is something about him that I like. I really like. And I don’t say that about many people. My thoughts of him are living under my skin, morphing into my newest obsession. “But we could be… maybe.”

“Why did you sleep with Gerard Steers?”

My eyes narrow to slits. “Who said I did?” I shoot back my whisky and swallow as it reaches the back of my throat.

“It was written all over your face at lunch the other week.” He taps his head. “It wasn’t hard for me to work out why you didn’t want to finish your degree.”

I drop my face and stare at the table top. “I trusted him, and he lied.”

Elijah doesn’t answer but pours himself another drink which he then tosses back. He really is on a mission for a headache.

“I don’t trust many people.” I hesitate before allowing the truth to slip out into the still kitchen. “And he betrayed that.”

“By having an affair with his student? I’d say the betrayal was obvious on many levels.”

I shake my head, my cheeks flaming. “It wasn’t an affair. But I allowed him to stay around, to talk, to be my friend.” There goes that word again.

“So why are you so hurt, if it wasn’t an affair?”

I nibble on my lip. The whisky burns in my veins and warms me up from the inside out. “I only ever sleep with someone once.” I can’t believe I’ve said this out loud, and I smack my hands over my face, covering my lips. He watches me expectantly, like he’s expecting me to finish the bombshell I’ve just dropped—and just like that I do. He pulls it from me with the power of those blues alone. “I don’t normally wait around to make small talk and be friends afterwards.”

He raises his head to meet my gaze. He’s probably judging me, reading between the lines of what I’m saying. I meet his look defiantly.

“You only sleep with someone once.” His voice is a low murmur, and it does something to my stomach, making it flip and flop with every word he mutters.

“I think we should focus the conversation on your solo whisky drinking.” My tipple is firing the blood in my veins, and when he pours me a fresh one I know I shouldn’t have it. “I haven’t eaten enough for this,” I say. I tip the glass in his direction.

“Because of my grandmother?”

I shake my head although I’m not going to outright lie and say I was eager to meet her again. “I was working.”

“Working?”

He leans forward, his eyebrows lifting. “Am I allowed to see?”

“Possibly.” I smile slightly, my throat burning from the drink.

“Why are you scared of intimacy?” His change of conversational direction again floors me. We never seem to be talking about the same thing for longer than two minutes.

“I’m not.” I bristle, taking another sip of my drink. I’m going to be outrageously drunk soon and then I might dive straight into those deep blues and never surface again. Shut up, Faith, you bloody idiot.

A shudder crawls over my skin at the word “intimacy”. All I can think of is inappropriate touches and hands I can’t escape from. The hairs on my arms stand on end and Elijah watches them transfixed.

“But you only sleep with people once. How do you learn them? Enjoy them?”

His question blindsides me. “What’s to enjoy?” I blurt.

He frowns, his dark brows knitting together. Slowly, his eyes focus on my face and he lifts a hand to trace a finger along the edge of my cheek. “That’s an incredibly sad statement.”

“Don’t judge me.” I bat his hand away. “I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I’m just hired by your family for a couple of weeks. I’m not here to be laughed at.”

There’s a small shake of his head and an even smaller smile. “I’m not laughing.” He drops his hand and falls back in his seat, reaching for the bottle. “What do you want to know? I’m an open book.”

I snort and pour myself another ill-advised drink once he’s let go of the bottle. “An open book? You are not even close. I don’t know a single thing about you, apart from the fact you restored a classic MG.”

“Maybe it’s because it’s all so very dull, it’s not worth telling.” His lip curls into a sneer, but I know it’s internalised and not directed at me.