It took monumental effort on Sylvie’s part to rise with dignity and exit the holding room. Let Luc find a way home himself. She needed to get out of his presence as soon as possible, before she broke down.
“You don’t understand,” Luc called after her.
“That’s the problem,” she answered him sadly, never bothering to look back. “I do understand.”
Chapter Sixteen
Luckily, Sylvie made it home before she broke down.
With shaky fingers, she inserted her key in the front lock. She assumed there was a bodyguard about somewhere, though she saw no one. Claudia had assured her that there would be two guards, one in front and one in back, twenty-four hours a day.
The minute the door closed behind her, the tears came. And came and came and came. Slow, silent streams of grief for something so precious that had seemed within her reach. Such a fool! How pathetic I must seem! He doesn’t want to see me again.
Sylvie had the foresight to lock the door behind her before tossing her purse onto a chair and making her way upstairs, crying the whole time, though in a restrained, gulping fashion. She made quick work of removing her clothing and stepping into her glass-walled shower stall. Only when the water was pulsating hot and steamy did she let loose with all the pain that seemed to have built up inside her.
It was Luc’s betrayal, of course, that had prompted this breakdown, but there was more than that. She hadn’t realized how much tension she’d built up over the love-potion discovery, the bullets shot into her home, Luc being captured. It was all too much for a normally reticent Sylvie to handle, especially on top of Luc’s words this afternoon that he didn’t want to see her again. Oh, he’d softened it by saying for a while, but she knew he was just trying to let her down easy.
With eyes closed and her face held upward, she basked in the hot pellets of spray that numbed her face and hopefully her heart. She was a strong woman. She would get over this… eventually. But, God, it hurt so bad.
“Sylv?”
Sylvie could barely hear the voice over the pounding shower, but before she had a chance to register the danger that someone had entered her house, Luc opened the shower door. He cursed softly under his breath on witnessing her sorry state, and entered the shower, fully clothed.
Luc saw the anguish on Sylvie’s face and could have died, knowing he’d caused her pain. Without care for his jeans and T-shirt, or the athletic shoes on his feet, he walked into the watery cascade. He couldn’t let another minute go by with Sylvie crying… over him.
The minute he’d left the holding cell and realized that Sylvie wasn’t in the waiting room, he’d panicked. Sure, he’d told her that they shouldn’t see each other for a while, but he’d been expecting to have time to explain his reasoning… in a private place where hidden eyes and ears couldn’t eavesdrop. He had pictured her tapping a foot angrily at the front desk, pissed off at him, calling him bad names, having second thoughts about helping him. But he’d never pictured her not there.
When he’d seen that she was gone, and realized that he might have pushed her too far, a sense of utter desperation overcame him. He’d only been involved with Sylvie for a few days. Still, in a flash of insight, he’d realized how miserable his life would be without Sylvie in it. Amazing, but true.
Tante Lulu had always claimed that when the thunderbolt hit, there would be no doubts. Well, he’d been hit with the mother of all zaps to the heart.
The processing of his release had taken only a half hour, but it had seemed like forever. His intuition had told him, and rightly so, that he needed to reach Sylvie immediately and explain himself before it was too late.
Was it already too late?
“Sylvie, let me explain,” he said now, not even caring if he looked like a fool standing fully clothed in her shower.
“Go away,” she wailed, trying to turn her face and naked body toward the wall.