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Kai’s gaze shifted. ‘And I let her do it. Even after she refused to marry me, I ignored my doubts about her. I just did what she kept telling me to do, looking to the future, forgetting the past.’

He’d forgotten his past so completely he barely remembered it. Barely remembered her. But he’d had to forget, she understood that now. He’d had to in order to survive.

‘Did you ever want anything for yourself?’ she asked into the silence. ‘Or was it all her?’

He straightened, his gaze on the remains of the photo burning in the grate. ‘I liked helping kids, so I wanted to be a teacher. I thought that’s what I’d be for a good few years after she adopted me. But then she told me that my ambitions were small and narrow, that I wasn’t seeing the big picture. That I was destined for more, that my skills would be wasted in teaching.’ He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. ‘I was good with numbers, got honours at Oxford, and by that stage, I didn’t want to go into teaching. I wanted to go into finance. She gave me some training in one of her companies, then made me start my own and grow it to prove myself.’

‘Did you enjoy any of it?’

‘Yes.’ He glanced at her, his gaze searing. ‘I loved the challenge. The strategy. It’s like playing chess and thinking ten moves ahead. She knew me, you see. She knew what I wanted, even if I didn’t see it myself.’

‘Is that what she told you?’

‘She told me that my mind was exceptional. That’s what she wanted in the end. Not my body, not me. Just that.’

Libby couldn’t stand by herself any longer. Slowly, she came over to him, and he turned to face her. ‘It’s not only your mind that’s exceptional, Kai.’

He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean…this.’ She lifted a hand and placed it on his hard, warm chest, directly over his heart. ‘Your heart is exceptional, too.’

His silver brows drew together, but he didn’t pull away. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Back at the home, you were the one who protected the younger kids. You were the one who spent time with them. You read books and drew pictures and played games with us. You were kind and patient and protective. We all loved you.’ She spread her fingers out on his chest and looked up into eyes. ‘The home was a darker, colder place without you.’

He stared back at her for long, uncounted moments, dark currents in his grey eyes shifting and changing. She didn’t know what he was thinking and couldn’t guess, but then he said, ‘I missed you.’

And she didn’t have a chance to ask how or why, because then he put his hand over hers, warm and strong, and then he kissed her, his mouth hot, becoming demanding.

She moaned and leaned into him, everything falling away. Nothing was more important now than giving him all the warmth inside her, melting those last remaining shards of ice, freeing the boy she’d once known, who wasn’t dead and gone after all.

His kiss became hungry, feverish, and she met him hunger for hunger, her hands slipping beneath his

T-shirt, feeling his warm bare skin under her fingertips.

He growled as she touched him, and before she could protest, he’d picked her up in his arms and taken her over to the sofa, laying her down onto it and pulling open her robe. She reached for him, tugging him down, his mouth on hers, her hands reaching for the buttons on his jeans.

Kai pulled back a moment, quickly tugging off his clothes, then grabbing a condom packet from his jeans. He quickly rolled down the protection, before kneeling between her spread thighs. She reached for him, but he took her hands in his, crossing her wrists and gripping them in one strong hand. Then he put them over her head and held them there. ‘No,’ he growled at her. ‘I’m in charge this time, and I’m not going to last if you keep touching me.’

The feeling of restraint didn’t bother her. In fact, it only pushed her arousal even higher, so when he slid inside her, she was already wet. She arched beneath him, pulling lightly at his grip just to feel it how strong it was, reveling in it, pleasure curling through her like smoke.

His grey eyes were burning with that hot, silver flame again and she stared up into them, letting herself burn along with him. He moved inside her, not slow this time, but fast and hard and desperate. He lowered his head to her throat, his teeth against her skin, nipping her and kissing her. She was sure he’d leave marks, but that was okay. She wanted them.

As the pleasure climbed higher, she couldn’t take her gaze from his. Anger and desire burned there, and she had the suspicion that he was exorcising Neve. Exorcising her ghost. But that was okay, too. She wanted to help him, to heal his hurt, and if he needed to use her to do it, then he could use her all he wanted.

But then right at the end, he looked down at her, and something flickered and changed. Focused. And she knew he was looking at her. Seeing her in a way no one else ever had. ‘My sunshine girl,’ he whispered, a note in his voice that she’d never heard before.

But then pleasure grew too much and she forgot, and when he put his hand down between her thighs, pressing on her clit, and when the release came for her and she cried out, he put his mouth on hers and swallowed it down.

* * *

Kai turned his face into Libby’s neck, inhaling her scent, breathing her in, letting the warmth of her permeate every part of him. The need for her had come upon him suddenly, and he hadn’t been able to think of anything else but having her. Of filling the gaping hole in his heart with her. And she hadn’t denied him, just as she wasn’t denying him now, her hand on his back, stroking him absently, tenderly.

Burning Neve’s picture had felt like…letting go of a heavy burden, and as he’d watched it burn, he could feel Libby’s gaze on him, and he’d finally felt able to talk about it. Tell her some things he’d never told another living soul. And afterwards, to have her come up to him and list all the things he still was, the things he’d thought he’d lost a long time ago and hadn’t. They were still there deep inside him.

He hadn’t known how much it meant to him until she’d said it.

So what now?