page6 (2/2)

She stared down at her bare feet The bright red nail polish she had applied to her toes earlier in the day was already beginning to flake She would have to get rid of it She actually hated bright red nail polish anyway She had only put it on because it e she had wanted for her stupid, childish surprise cake gimmick

‘Taking care of any woht, there was so out of a box in front of three of the country’s top finance gurusto be his life, and falling out of boxes just wasn’t going to cut it

‘I don’t believe you’ Megan held her ground stubbornly, deterh every inch of pain until the picture was totally clear in her head ‘You just don’t think that I’h for you now you’re about to e career of yours If I had been an…accountant, or…an econo there, airbrushing h I’d never existed!’

‘What do you want an?’ He finally snapped, furious that she wasthis already difficult situation evenanswers to hypothetical speculations ‘That I can’t see myself in a permanent situation with so karaoke when she’s thirty-five?’

If he had extracted a whip from his back pocket and slashed it across her face it couldn’t have hurt more, and she stared at him mutely

‘I apologise,’ he said brusquely ‘That remark was entirely uncalled for Why can’t you just accept that there are limitations to this relationship and always have been?’

‘You never ive you my undivided love and you never said a word aboutthe bill’

‘Nor did I ever speak to you about a future for us’

‘No,’ Megan agreed quietly ‘No, you never did, did you?’

Alessandro steeled hi blue eyes ‘I assumed you were aware of the differences between us as well as I was—assumed you knew thathappy fae somewhere in the middle of nowhere’

‘I assumed you cared about me’

‘We had fun, Megan’ He spun round and stared out of the gri vieo floors down In the rapidly gathering dark the strip of shops opposite promised fish and chips, an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet every lunchtient and that was about it—because the other three shops were boarded up