Read Online Boats in the night by Josephine Myles - Free Book Online

make things right again. Things haven’t been right between us for a long time.” Giles focused on a lone gull perched on one of the nearby chimney pots. Better that than risk looking at Fabian, in case he pulled that little-boy-lost face he always used when things weren’t going the way he wanted. Trouble was, no matter how Giles tried to guard against it, that look cut right through his defences. Fabian had suffered a terrible upbringing—he might have been privileged in terms of money and education, but to watch your own mother deteriorate in that way when you were just a small child… well, that would have to leave scars.
    He watched the gull flap powerful wings and take flight, a flash of brilliant white
    against the cerulean sky. He felt a stab of envy. What he wouldn’t give to soar that high, that free.
    But wasn’t that what he’d done for a few short moments last night? Untethered by
    responsibilities and expectations, floating on the primal bliss of another body held tight to his own? He wanted to try that again. To see if it was really Smutty who made him feel that way, and if that wild magic could be repeated without being tamed and losing its power.
    Fabian was talking, Giles realised. He tuned back in reluctantly, unwilling to give up the mental picture of his and Smutty’s bodies tangled together.
    “—and I realise you’ll need time to think things through, but please don’t go throwing away everything we had together on a whim.”
    Giles laughed, the sound harsh and bitter. “A whim? That’s what you’re calling this, is it? No, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, thanks. I’ve had a whole month of sick leave all by myself to dwell on it and turn it over again and again. Believe me, you did me a favour, leaving. I’d never have had the guts to do it myself, but you freed me.” Giles took a moment to think through what he’d just said. “God, that’s right!” Giles turned to face Fabian, buoyed up on his new certainty. “I’m free now. I don’t have to listen to you any more, and I don’t need your approval. That’s not how a relationship should work.”
    Fabian gave him a pitying gaze. “But darling, you’ve never had a relationship with
    anyone else. What makes you the expert all of a sudden?”
    Giles kept his mouth firmly closed. He wasn’t going to share anything about Smutty,
    because he knew exactly what Fabian would say about him. “Degenerate gypsy” would be about the best he could hope for. Besides, it wasn’t like one night together was a relationship, was it? Yet, it was strange to admit it to himself, but he’d confided more of what dwelt deep inside him in that one night than he’d ever managed in all his years with Fabian.
    “I don’t believe it,” Fabian said, stepping close enough for Giles to catch a waft of his spicy cologne. “There’s someone else, isn’t there? Who could you have met? You never even go out anywhere.”
    Giles didn’t respond, but Fabian seemed to take that as an affirmative. “Please be
    careful, Giles. You’re a wealthy man. You need a man who’s your equal, not some gold-digger out to take advantage of your generous nature.” He laid a hand on Giles’s arm and gave him a beseeching look.
    “He’s not like that. And it’s not what you think, anyway. I just… I’m ready to start again. To make plans, and you’re not a part of them.”
    The beauty fled from Fabain’s eyes as they hardened. “I just hope you know what
    you’re doing, darling.” The endearment sounded forced and unnatural. “My offer won’t stay open forever, you know.”
    Any remaining shoots of compassion in Giles’s breast shrivelled up and died. He gave a wry smile. “Fabian, darling , that’s a chance I’m perfectly willing to take.”
    Giles walked out of Fabian’s office and carried on down to his car without looking
    back. He didn’t want to stop moving until he was back home and he’d found Smutty.
    He had a theory to