I had. I did. I shivered as I recognised the old me in so many of the things he was saying. I’d needed thousands of volts of electricity to question whether I was living life the wrong way, but Rhys hadfigured it out all by himself. I admired him more than he’d ever know for that.
‘Well, even though you’re too polite to admit it, I apologise for taking you on the dullest date you’ve probably ever had.’
‘Clearly you have no idea how many tragic dates I’ve been on.’
‘Aha, so we are calling this a date now?’ he said in mock triumph.
I’d been tricked into walking straight into that one.
‘No. I didn’t say that. In fact, I think tonight would be a really good time to draw some lines in the sand. Just so we know where we are.’
He moved to stand beside me and I shivered, wondering why all the cells in my body went haywire whenever he entered my personal space. Surely that had to be something chemical? Something to do with the lightning? He noticed the raised goosebumps on my arms and wordlessly slipped off his jacket.
There were at least a hundred good reasons why I should object to him draping it around my shoulders, but I forgot all of them when he enveloped me in the garment still warm from the heat of his body. I breathed him in from the fabric, like a drug I was taking one final hit from before I quit it forever.
‘I know exactly where we are, and where I hope we’ll go,’ Rhys said.
Damn my heart for lurching within me at his words, for racing at the warmth in his voice. I had the most rebellious internal organs known to man. Not one of them knew how to behave when this man got close.
‘What would have happened if I hadn’t agreed to come with you tonight?’ I asked.
He turned to me.
‘Then I probably wouldn’t have spent half of the afternoon in a state of excitement that even teenage me would have been embarrassed to admit to. I wouldn’t have been holding my breathin anticipation until the moment you opened your door and smiled at me.’
I was trembling, and it wasn’t because I was cold. My hands were visibly shaking, and I balled them tightly into fists on the stone wall so he couldn’t see.
‘I also wouldn’t have spent the entire evening wondering if this would be the night when I’d finally get to hold you in my arms and kiss you. And I also wouldn’t be worrying right now that you’re about to say something that’s going to stop this thing in its tracks for no good reason, except that you’re scared of where it might go.’
‘I’ll give you a good reason. Two in fact. You have a partner and a child.’
Had my voice ever sounded so small? So sad?
‘I have an ex-partner, who I haven’t loved for a very long time, and a daughter who I’m going to love forever,’ he corrected gently.
‘You should be with Tasha, Rhys. Little girls need their daddies.’
He lifted one hand and gently cupped my cheek. The pad of his thumb ran across my skin and came away wet. How had I not known that I was crying?
‘Where is this coming from? Tasha has me. She’ll always have me. But I don’t think she’s the little girl who’s making you cry right now, is she?’
I was losing ground, losing my focus in an argument I’d thought was watertight and now realised – too late – was leaking like a sieve.
‘This isn’t real. Feelings like this, connections this strong don’t just spring up out of nowhere. I think something weird, something electrical, happened to us when the lightning struck. It’s done something, hotwired us into thinking this attraction between us is real.’
‘So, you’re willing to admit there is an attraction?’
Damn, I’d walked straight into that one. Denying it would make me a liar – we both knew it was there.
‘Yes. Of course I do. But I don’t think that just because the lightning has affected us on a molecular level that we have to act on it.’
He looked down at me, shaking his head sadly.
‘That’s not it. That’s just how we met. It could have been in a lift, or in a sandwich shop, or crashing trolleys in a supermarket aisle. I could have met you anywhere and still felt like this.’
‘Well, I disagree,’ I said, my chin jutting out obstinately. It was a gesture anyone who’d known me in my argumentative teenage years would easily recognise.
‘So, if you think none of this is real, what do you suggest we do about it?’