"But it is there, isn't it? It is for me, and I think it is for you too."

"You're wrong," he said.  "I don't do break ups, and I don't do broken hearts. You know this. I told you this. Didn't I?"

Sophie half nodded. Yes, he'd told her very clearly that he didn't want a relationship, but that was back in the beginning. They were different people now. They'd changed each other.

"I don't want to feel this Sophie. Like I've led you on, or like I can't be with anyone else."

"Lucien, you said yourself that you don't want to be with anyone else!"

"Yes, and you have no idea how much that fucks me off. Don't you get it, Sophie? I don't want these feelings, or these cravings." He splayed his hand on his chest. "It's not who I am."

Sophie stared at his bent head. He meant what he said, and it frustrated the hell out of her. Being that emotionally screwed up must be exhausting.

"Let me get this straight, Lucien. You're walking away, and you're pushing me away, because you want me too much? Because you have feelings that you didn't expect?"

She shook her head and knocked back the whisky, letting the alcohol warm her body and loosen her tongue.

"Well guess what? I didn't expect them either. I didn't plan this, but Lucien I'm going to say it..."

He lifted his head, his eyes brooding with danger. "Don't, Sophie."

"I love you." It wasn't how she'd planned to say it, but she was way too far down the line to stop now. She slid the glass onto the table and stood up. "I love you, Lucien Knight."

"No you don't." His voice was as bleak as the shuttered expression in his eyes. "I don't love you, and you don't love me either. You might think you do, but you said it yourself in Paris - I'm your rebound guy."

She half laughed, unexpectedly giddy with the relief of letting all of her pent up emotions out. "I did say that. I did, and I really thought that, but I was wrong. Trust me, the last thing I planned on was loving you. But I do." She was close enough to touch him now, but she didn't. She didn't want to let their physical connection take over when there were still things she needed to say. "You can walk away, and you can deny it, but I think you love me back."

Lucien tipped his head up and lifted his gaze to the ceiling, the slow shake of his head and hard set of his jaw telling Sophie how much he was struggling. It was painful to watch him in his Herculean effort to hold onto his beliefs.

"It's lust Sophie," he said eventually. "And maybe it's infatuation, but it isn't love."

A rush of anger roared through her at his denial of something so intrinsically, obviously, straightforwardly good.

"You know what, Lucien Knight, you're a coward," she blazed, feeling all the power that he'd imbued in her over the past months rise to the surface now that she needed it most of all. She had his full attention for one last time, and she was going to give it everything she had. "You hide behind your flash cars and designer houses... you deny love exists, and all for what? So you can hang onto your oh-so-glamorous lifestyle and screw anyone you want to? Listen to yourself - you don't want to screw anyone else. You want me. And I'm here, now, saying I want you too, saying I love you, and I don't know where the hell it'll end up, but I'm brave enough to say that right now you're my everything. You've opened my eyes, and my body, and my heart to so much more than I knew existed, and you make me feel beautiful, and protected, and adored, and I don't think you could do all of those things if you didn't love me back. Everything about you scares me... your lifestyle, your secrets, and the damn stubborn way you cling to your lines as if you've rehearsed them so often that they're written in stone. But you can change them. It's okay to love someone, Lucien. It's okay to let someone in. Let me in."

They stared at each other in silence, both shell-shocked by her words.

"That's just it, Sophie. It's not okay... It's not okay." He spoke jerkily, painfully. "I will hurt you, and I will leave you, and I will cheat on you."

Wow. Tears scorched her throat. Tears of pity and frustration for herself, and for this beautiful, fucked up man. "You're already hurting me, and it would seem that you're intent on leaving me. How can you know that you'll cheat?"

"It's in my genes. It's who I am, and I warned you... I warned you not to do this."

There was a desperation in his voice.

"That’s just crap. Infidelity isn't in anyone's genes, it's a choice. Christ, Lucien! Even Dan never tried to blame genetic failure for his affair." She knew her words hit home from the way he closed his eyes to shut her out. She didn't want him to shut her out, but she couldn't find the way to stop the door closing, even as she scrabbled for a fingerhold, to keep it open even just a chink.

"When you touch me... when you touch me, Lucien, it's not just sex. When you came to me, right here in my bed, I knew." She was crying now. "You made love to me then, and you made love to me again tonight. You can walk away from me, but it won't change the truth. I know you love me."

"Sophie, you love a stranger, some hero you've dreamed up to get over your husband. That man isn't me.  How can you be so trusting, so open, knowing full well how much you're going to be hurt?"

"It's not a choice, Lucien. It's who I am, and it's pretty god damn normal. That’s how people are. They love, and they get hurt. But sometimes, just sometimes, they don't get hurt. They don't cheat, or leave... they stay and they love you forever." Her voice broke. "I want to love you forever."

"Be someone else then, Sophie, because being you is too risky."

"I'd rather be me than you. I'd rather risk getting hurt than deny myself the chance to ever love anyone."

"I'm not in denial," he stated flatly.

"Let me in, God damn you." Sophie clutched his face. "Let me in."

Lucien placed his hands over hers and closed his eyes as he drew in a deep, unsteady breath. When he opened them again, he removed her hands gently and placed them at her sides. "There is no in, Sophie. This is it. This is who I am, who I've always been, and who I'll always be."

He left her then, feeling more heartsick and lonely than she'd ever dreamed it was possible to be.

Chapter Thirty-Three

December blew in cold and fittingly bleak, and the idea of celebrating the impending festive period felt incomprehensible to Sophie. She had fuzzy recollections of Christmas's gone by, when Dan had always dragged an impractically large tree into the house and they'd decorated it together over the best part of a bottle of Baileys. But those memories were tainted now, because in amongst all of the picture book romance Dan had been secretly sleeping with his mistress. Had he helped dress her Christmas tree over the years too? It was mentally exhausting trying to rearrange all of her memories to fit the new reality they now existed in, one that included Maria in the background.