Passionate Choice

Chapter 9.7

"I hope you like cognac." said Keith coming over to her. She turned to him and he offered her a goblet in which the tawny liqueur swayed. She took it from him. In the glow from the lanterns which lit the terrace, only half his face was illuminated. The other half was in shadow. But she could see enough. She could see that the twist was still there marring the shapeliness of his lips.

"I'd give you a toast only I don't know what the hell to toast to," he said bitterly. "So I'll just say, here's to us."

"Here's to us," she repeated faintly. The glasses clinked. They tipped them to their mouths. There was silence. From inside the room came the clink of dishes as they were removed from the table.

"Let's go and sit down," said Keith and turning, walked along the terrace to dine cushioned chairs which were set outside the windows of the big lounge. Slowly, Selena followed, sat down and out her glass down on the table. There was enough cognac in it to make her drunk, she thought with amusement, especially after the wine she had had at dinner.

"Remember the first time you came to this house?" Keith asked abruptly.

"Yes, I do. It's a lovely house."

"I was going to ask you to come and stay here for s few days when we returned to Nassau at the end of our cruise together three and a half years ago."

Selena said nothing. She found she was holding her breath and waiting, waiting for him to say more, afraid to speak herself in case she said something wrong but when the silence continued longer than she had expected, she realized he was expecting her to make some comment. She sipped some more brandy and looked across at him. There wasn't so much light on that part of the terrace and his face was a mystery again.

"If you had asked me to stay I would have stayed," she murmured. Sitting there looking out at the darkened garden across which once they had walked hand in hand to the beach memories were coming thick and fast, of all their times together and, in particular, of the moments on Nightingale at Nassau when he hadn't asked her to stay. Raising her head, she looked across him again and said more loudly, almost accusingly, "Oh, why didn't you ask me? Why didn't you? Why did you let me leave you?"

He raised his head too, sharply and she caught the glint of light in his eyes.

"I let you leave?" he repeated, his voice rising a little. "I remember rightly you wanted very much to leave. You were damned feisty when I came back to the boat to ask you. You'd changed in a few minutes. You'd become a stiff and starchy feminist wit only one thing in view. A career." She heard the sneer in his voice. "Who was I to come between a woman and her career? And I didn't want to. It's never suited me to play second fiddle writer to another man it to a career." He lifted his glass and drank more brandy. "You left because you wanted to, Selena, not because I let you," he added.

"I left because I believed you were going to marry Sora," she replied steadily.

The silence which followed her statement simmered with all kinds of unspoken expletives yet when he spoke, his voice was very quiet, silken with menace.

"Say than again," he said.

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