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‘How can I knohat your feelings are if you don’t talk about them? And I never condemned you—’

He gave a raw laugh ‘I saw the way you cringed from me when I came into Sophie’s room’

Was that what he’d thought?

‘That was because I felt guilty, that’s all!’ she cried ‘Youcurious about you is some kind of crime—’

‘Curiosity? Is that what it is?’ He caught her other arm as she tried to shake hi about? Why don’t you tell ?’ he invited savagely

Lightning flashed and Veronica instinctively squeezed her eyes shut and tensed, waiting for the thunder, but this tied off in the near distance

She gingerly opened her eyes and found his combative expression tempered by faintly cruel amusement ‘You really are twitchy about storms, aren’t you?’ he scorned

‘I saw a cow killed by a lightning strike in a paddock when I was a child’ Her hands unconsciously gripped his restraining forear herself they were both safe ‘I’ve been a bit storm-shy ever since’

His a This is sheet lightning—discharging up in the air, within the cloud itself—only dangerous if you’re a bird or a plane It’s true,’ he added as she looked at hienius—I know all sorts of useful facts’ His mouth took on an ironic twist ‘Would I lie to you?’

There was another flash and instant crack and she ju chest ‘Oh, I was sure it wasaway!’

‘I used to cobuildup of static in the clouds, these dry summer stores,’ he said, subtly easing them further away fro here as a kid with Zoe and Fred I tih technically, I suppose, it was actually a series of storm cells’

Veronica’s eyes rounded in disht be trapped with me until it passes?’

A tiny frisson passed through her body and his gaze sharpened into a keen alertness that drove her rashly into speech

‘I’m not a coward…unlike sohty disdain that instantlyunfounded assu words into listen—’

‘I’d rather put so her out of her flimsy sandals