‘You haven’t had a chance.’ Sam looked thoughtful again. ‘You’ve been running around like crazy. I never realised how demanding my family was until I put myself in your shoes.’
‘It was fine. To be honest, it was nice to keep busy, not to have to think about things for too long.’
‘Not to think about me, you mean?’
There was a strange expression on his face. A mixture of wistfulness and regret. She reached out to cup his jaw. ‘Don’t be silly, of course I wanted to think about you.’
‘You did?’
She clambered onto her knees, crawling close enough to him to press her lips to his. ‘I missed this.’
He cupped the back of her head with his hand, deepening the kiss, and she felt herself relax in his embrace. All day she’d been on high alert, overthinking everything she did. Unsure if she was simply looking after the family, or trying to win some kind of approval from them.
Sam slung his arm around her, laying her back down on the bed. He propped himself above her, arms caging her in on either side. ‘My family have the worst fucking sense of timing.’
Her smile was weak. ‘Story of my life.’ The last time Foster interfered, Sam had disappeared to America. That sense of foreboding returned again. ‘I should leave, Sam. This isn’t right.’
He frowned. ‘What isn’t right?’
‘You and me. Here. All the stuff that’s been happening between us.’
‘What if it’s the only thing that’s right?’ he asked. ‘What if it’s the only thing that I can think about, day or night?’
Her mouth was dry. ‘What if it was?’
‘Then I’d be pretty fucking annoyed that you don’t think it’s right.’
‘Sam . . . ’ She screwed her face up, trying to find the right words. It should be easy for a writer, shouldn’t it? But every time she tried to put her feelings into sentences, it was as though she got writer’s block. In the end, she had to settle for honesty. ‘What if it’s the right thing, but the wrong timing?’ she asked him. ‘Because everything feels so out of time right now.’
‘What are you saying?’ He rolled to the side, his expression closing up.
‘I don’t know. It’s just that it was all so good, then as soon as your family arrived I felt so bad. Now all I want to do is get out of here.’
‘You want to leave?’ he whispered.
‘I don’t even know what I’d be leaving,’ she told him.
‘Me. You’d be leaving me.’
She tried to swallow the emotion down. Sam’s expression wasn’t helping. He looked bereft. ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ she said.
‘Then don’t.’
‘But I can’t stay anyway. Gabi and Sandro arrive back in the morning. I’ll be surplus to requirements.’
‘Then stay as my guest.’
‘As your guest?’ She wasn’t sure what shocked her most: his offer, or her visceral response to it. Being described as his guest felt like a kick in the gut. ‘Is that what I am, your guest?’
He looked confused at her vehemence. ‘Of course you’re not just my guest. But you’re the one who wants to hide everything from my parents. You’re the one who wants to pretend to be a servant and look after us without even looking me in the eye.’
‘So if I told you I wanted you to come clean to them you would?’
He looked almost panicked. ‘I don’t know . . . I . . . God, Cesca. Everything was so easy, so uncomplicated, you know. It’s not a good time right now. Foster and I . . . well, our relationship’s complicated. I don’t want to make it any worse.’
‘I know.’ She felt her heart breaking, piece by tiny piece. ‘And I can understand if you don’t want to introduce me as your . . . whatever it is we are. But I can’t just stay here and pretend to be something I’m not, either.’
‘I’m not asking you to do that.’