Page 46 of Consequences of Their Wedding Charade
But he still felt rattled as they headed straight for her tiny kitchen.
‘Well?’ she demanded, hands on hips, as he took his time settling into one of the kitchen chairs that always felt way too tiny for him.
Her deep navy-blue eyes were narrowed accusingly on him and Curtis shifted uneasily, for once in his life on the defensive.
‘Are we going to get into an argument about this?’
‘Yes, that’s a definite possibility, Curtis!’
‘Why don’t you sit down instead of towering over me like an avenging angel?’
‘How on earth could you let William believe that we’re going to be marriedwithin a fortnight?’
‘If memory serves me, we were both present when that announcement was made.’ But for once his agile mind was refusing to do what it usually did so well, manoeuvre through the problems and cut straight to the chase.
She had managed to break through his defences.
That was the sobering thought at the back of his mind. It wasn’t about his ego being a little bruised. He was hurting because...because...because she had managed to break through his defences and leave him open and vulnerable.
When had that happened? Before they’d slept together. Before he had become blatantly aware of her physical attraction. With blinding clarity, he recognised that she had made stealthy strides deep into the very core of him and, bit by bit, she had stolen his heart.
She might not want him as a long-term proposition because she was looking for someone more suitable, and he knew that there was no way he could force her hand and neither would he want to.
Wasn’t the depth of love measured by the painful ability to walk away if that was what the person you loved wanted?
Because he loved this woman. He loved her in all her moods. He was addicted to her laughter and her generous spirit and her sense of humour, which was so like his. He loved this woman because she got him in ways no one else in the world did, and that included his godfather.
If he had to take the hit with his godfather, if he had to sink in his estimation in order to be the person who let go the object of his love for her own good, because that was what she wanted, then so be it.
He felt he could no longer look at her and he scowled at the effort of averting his hungry gaze.
‘What are we going to do?’
Jess could feel the walls closing in around her. It was one thing to promote a small white lie with an indefinite timeline. It was quite another when the small white lie grew sharp teeth and the timeline shrank from indefinite to just round the corner.
When she thought about being propelled into living with Curtis, a ring on her finger, trapped with someone who didn’t love her and who, inevitably, would grow to resent her oppressive presence in his life, she broke out in a cold sweat.
‘How can you be so...socalm?’ she demanded shrilly. ‘Did you have any idea of what was going to happen this evening? Did William say anything to you? Why would he want us to get marriedin two weeks?’
‘You’re horrified,’ Curtis said flatly.
‘Of course I’m horrified! Aren’t you?’
‘It was my idea for us to get married so I’m hardly going to be quite as horrified as you seem to be.’
‘I can’t marry someone just for the sake of a child, Curtis. We’ve been through all this already! That sort of union would destroy both of us in the end.’ She had a vivid image of him sneaking out in the dead of night for an illicit rendezvous with a small, adoring blonde so that he could have hot sex with someone more to his liking and complain about the shrew he had been obliged to wed because of his godfather.
It jarred that she knew he wasn’t that sort of person, the sort to have clandestine affairs, but who knew how anyone might react given certain circumstances?
Married and with a broken heart that got a little more broken day by day was not a future she wanted for herself.
If she could never have a clean break because of the fact that they shared a child, then surely as clean a break as possible would be the best option?
She missed his dark flush and the tightening of his lips as she continued to visualise a future that had been brought to within touching distance by William.
She blinked to find him rising to his feet, turning away from her, and there was such finality in that movement that she yearned to reach out and stop him.
‘You understand where I’m coming from, don’t you?’ she questioned anxiously, following him out of the kitchen and then hovering indecisively as he began putting on his coat.
