I offered the first olive branch.

I’m—I’m so—sorry for ruining your night with…Cora—”

He snorted at me. “I wasn’t there for Cora tonight,” he said, shaking his head.

He wasn’t? This was news to me. As much as I wanted to hope, I forced my fluttering heart to calm. “You weren’t there for Cora tonight.” I said the words slowly and deliberately, an edge of questioning sarcasm in my tone that asked the burning but unspoken, then why in the hell were you there tonight, Neil?

“Nah, I wasn’t.” He looked over at me, his expression giving nothing away.

It was apparent he wasn’t going to tell me why he was there either and the realization annoyed me greatly. “So, if you know about Cora then why do you stay with her? She’s running around on you as soon as you go away. She’s a cheater. Every time, Neil. She doesn’t love you like I—like—like she should do!”

Oops.

The silence in the car screamed in the small space between us.

“I’m not with Cora anymore.”

“You were when you first got back. I saw you with her more than once.”

He narrowed his eyes. “But, I’m not with her anymore, Elaina,” he said with a bite.

“Really.” I couldn’t say much more, I was so surprised at his declaration. Neil and Cora were finished? If I wasn’t sitting in a car and felt better, I might just jump up and do a jig in celebration, but my head continued to pound, and my stomach continued to storm.

“Really, there’s nothing there,” he sailed right back. “I’ve known for a long time what she gets up to and it doesn’t matter anymore what she does when I’m away.” He turned his head slowly to me, taking his eyes off the road. “We were just using each other from the get go…”

We were just using each other? Lovely. Picturing that twat getting even five minutes of Neil’s attentions made me insane with jealousy. Images of him and Cora making love, touching each other, kissing passionately, flashed through my head until I couldn’t help but groan against the cool window of his car. “Oh…I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do.”

Insane jealousy wasn’t the only thing I felt either. There was also the violent urge to be sick again.

“Pull over!” I managed to sputter.

The second round was mostly just a lot of mortifying gagging and retching. There was nothing in me now except for the water I’d sipped. Neil didn’t say anything once it was over. He kept quiet, bundled me back into his car, and drove us away. I closed my eyes and let him take care of me sure this was all a nightmare I would eventually wake from.

In the morning I would deal with facing up to the spectacle I’d made of myself in front of Neil, but not now.

Now I would pretend this was all just a dream…because it was the most my poor heart could manage to do.

5

I could smell him again. The scent in my nose was so wonderful I didn’t ever want to leave where I was in my beautiful, Neil-scented dream. I opened my eyes and saw darkness and unfamiliar surroundings…and him.

Neil was on his side watching me in the bed. Well, more specifically, in his bed.

“Wakey, wakey,” he said softly with a smirk to go with it, not more than two feet from me.

I bolted up fast and found the blinking glow of the clock. 12:45 a.m. “I—I—I’m at your flat? Mum will be—”

“—Just fine,” he cut me off smoothly. “I rang your house and talked to your mum. She knows you’re with me so you can relax. How do you feel? Any better?”

I brought both hands to my head and rubbed, realizing I was missing my dress as I sat up in Neil’s deliciously smelling bed. Bra and knickers only. I turned my head slowly to look at him in the dim light. “You undressed me?” I couldn’t imagine the scenario of what that must have been like, and was again annoyed with him, because damn it all, if Neil was undressing me, then I sure as hell wanted to be awake when he did.

He nodded and then gently tugged me down to where I’d been positioned when I’d first opened my eyes. I settled back into my side arrangement and focused on him.

I decided to wait for him to explain. No need for me to start blabbering out a bunch of nonsense if I didn’t have to.

“You fell deeply asleep after you were sick the second time. I carried you in and when I laid you down I could see your dress was spotted with…ah…puke…so I took it off you.” I had to give Neil credit for keeping it cool because he kept his eyes on mine throughout that entire awkward explanation.

But, what he did share embarrassed me so much, I couldn’t move, or speak. My mortification paralyzed me to the point I could only manage one thing. Cry. I did it quietly but the flood was unstoppable once it began. I couldn’t take my eyes off him this time as they spilled over with tears.

“Don’t cry, darlin’, it’s only me.” He brought his thumb forward and brushed at my tears.

I just stared at him and kept crying. I couldn’t look away and I couldn’t stop my tears.

“Are you kidding me?” he said. “I got to see you in your knickers and watch you sleeping in my bed. I should be the one crying…in gratitude.”

“Don’t tease me. Please don’t,” I whimpered, holding up my hand, hating the sound of my voice and totally shocked at my predicament. Surreal. Nearly naked and in bed with Neil after being sick in front of him twice and passing out. I clamped a hand over my mouth. “I must stink to high heaven, and—and I need some water or something.”

He helped me sit up again and handed me a glass from the bedside table along with two Nurofen tablets.

One, I was impressed with his forethought, and two, his total calm with me in the absurd situation. He said nothing while I downed the pills and sipped my water. He merely watched with that intense expression of his. I had absolutely no idea what he thought about all that’d been said and done between us tonight.

The covers slipped down to my waist, exposing me in nothing but a light blue bra, nearly all of me on display for him to see.

Oh, he saw all right. Neil’s eyes roved over my skin and then flicked back up to my eyes and held them. It was impossible to know what he was thinking in that moment of supreme weirdness. I was unable to tell, and at a complete disadvantage with him. Was he repulsed by me? Turned on a little because I was nearly naked in his bed and he was a man? A soldier home on leave, and more than a little horny, in need of a woman? Did he even see me as a woman or just as a responsibility? Who in depths of hell knew? I surely didn’t. Why had he picked me up and brought me to his flat in the first place?