No, she thought, you really don’t. She reached forward and turned the radio up, and for the next ten minutes, neither said a word.

“It’s three minutes to ten,” Tilly said quietly as Kate made a left onto Mornington Peninsula Road. “We’re going to miss the boat.”

No analogy was better fitting, Kate thought. They’d always be the pair who missed the boat.

Chapter Eighteen

“I couldn’t do it,” Tilly called down the pier. “I couldn’t stay in his house.”

Kate’s long, exasperated groan was swallowed by the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, against the pilings of the pier. Running a hand through her hair, she stared out into the dark void of Port Phillip Bay. The lights had gone out over on Lords, the dim lights of East Island hidden behind it. And that goddamn ferry, already so far away. A few minutes earlier and they would have made it. What was she supposed to do now? Take Tilly back to her mother’s house?

Tilly’s heels clomped loudly down the pier, taunting. Closer. Closer still. Kate’s body hummed dangerously. Swiftly, Kate pivoted, setting her hot gaze on Tilly. At Kate’s stare, Tilly halted midstep.

Kate swallowed harshly. “I don’t want to patronise you but I don’t think you understand just how close we are to making a very, very bad decision.” The words escaped her in a rush. “If you want to keep your promise to him, then you need to just go back to the van and give me a minute here to just cool—”

“I haven’t made a promise yet.”

Kate’s eyes slipped closed for a second. Yet. What part of that statement did Tilly think Kate would find helpful?

When Kate’s eyes opened, Tilly stepped forward. Kate raised a hand. “Don’t.”

“It wouldn’t be a mistake.”

“I never said it would be a mistake.”

“A bad decision. You said it would be a bad decision.”

“It would be.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re straight, Til.”

“But what if I’m not?” Tilly asked shakily. “I want you the way you want me.”

“Tilly. Don’t.”

“I see the way you look at me,” she said, moving closer. “You think I don’t see it but I do. You’ve been looking at me that way for months. Since the day I got here. In the convent kitchen, when I was telling the sisters about Declan…you were just staring at me like…like…”

Kate’s breath hitched. “Like what?”

At the sight of Tilly’s unfaltering gaze, heat crawled beneath her skin. “Like you loved me.”

Cheeks burning, Kate swiped her hands over her face in frustration. The handle she had on her resolve was wavering, and with every ardent comment from Tilly, like the tide, her will to resist slipped further away. They were teetering on the edge and it wouldn’t take much to lay their truth bare. Any further and they couldn’t go back.

Tilly reached out, smoothed her fingers across Kate’s cheek. Instantly, the hairs stood on the back of her neck. “It’s always been so easy for me—to remain abstinent, to not give in. But I’ve never been tested—not really.” Kate’s eyes slammed closed. A thumb traced Kate’s bottom lip, tentative, then firmer. “But now I can’t go a day without thinking about what your body feels like. The way you’d love me.”