‘What’s happened?’ His voice was clipped, formal, even as he snapped into the businessman that he was: ready to deal at a second’s notice with whatever was thrown at him.
‘My grandmother,’ Tabitha started, ‘she’s sold the house.’
‘To pay off her debt?’
Tabitha shrugged; pulling the sheet around her, she covered her breasts. ‘I’d already taken care of that.’ She looked up. ‘Or rather you had.’ Her fingers were pleating the sheet; she was chewing her bottom lip as she dealt with the bombshell that had just exploded. ‘She’s sold up and is moving into a retirement village with a man she’s apparently fallen head over heels in love with. She’s going to pay me back—that was why she rang. She wanted to tell me before the wedding.’
‘So you wouldn’t have to go through with it?’ His voice was strained, hoarse, his austere façade disintegrating with every word. ‘Did you tell her our marriage was all a sham?’
‘No.’ Tears were streaming now, his apt description the salt in the wound. ‘She thought it would make things easier for us—you know, a young couple starting out and all that…’
‘We’re hardly teenagers.’
‘I told her that,’ Tabitha agreed, wiping her cheeks with the edge of the sheet. ‘And I told her she didn’t have to rush—after all, we wouldn’t exactly have starved.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s not as if you need the money…’
‘I meant why the sudden past tense, Tabitha? What’s with the “we wouldn’t have”? Shouldn’t you be saying “we won’t”?’
‘I can pay you back the money I owe you,’ she sobbed, looking at his perplexed face. ‘She’s sold her house, I tell you. His name’s Bruce…’#p#分页标题#e#
‘I don’t give a damn what his name is.’ Realisation was dawning for both of them, with aching clarity, and he ran a hand through his tousled hair, the muscle jumping in his cheek the only sign he was anything other than completely calm. ‘I could still make you go through with it,’ he hissed. ‘The contract covered everything.’
Not quite. Tabitha fiddled with the stone on her finger. Not once did it mention love. She could feel the moisture of their lovemaking between her legs, slipping away from her as surely as Zavier was. ‘You can’t force me, Zavier, you’ve no hold over me now. I can back out if I want to.’
He stood up, walking over to the window and staring broodingly outside, his nakedness mocking her now, a teasing taste of what she could have had—for six months at least.
‘But I won’t.’ His back was to her. She saw the set of his shoulders, the quilted muscles beneath the olive skin, and she ached to reach out for him. ‘I still want to marry you.’
She watched him stiffen more, if that was possible.
‘Why?’
Still his back was to her; still he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Tabitha was grateful for the reprieve. This was hard enough without being humiliated further, seeing the scorn, the triumph in his eyes when she told him she loved him.
‘Because…’ The words were there but her mouth simply wouldn’t obey her. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Do I have to spell it out?’
He turned then. The scorn she had predicted was there in his eyes, but there wasn’t even a trace of triumph, just a sneering look of distaste.
‘Money?’ His lips twisted around the word. ‘God, you’re even more desperate for it than I thought.’
She could have put him right then, pleaded her case and told him the truth, but what purpose would it have served? He was as damaged as Aiden; sure, he didn’t drown himself in alcohol, but his problems ran just as deep, his soul was just as damaged. Not once had it even entered his head that her reason for sleeping with him, for agreeing to this charade, for marrying him, might be love.
‘Do you know why I despise you so much, Tabitha?’
She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear his scathing comments, but some sadistic streak made her answer. Running a tongue over her dry lips, she heard her voice come out in a coarse whisper. ‘Why?’
‘Because beneath that smile, beneath that trusting little face and that easygoing laugh, you’re as hard as nails.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘This time tomorrow you’ll be Mrs Tabitha Chambers—if a bolt of lightning doesn’t strike you down first.’ Slamming out of the adjoining door into his own room, he left her there, on the bed, shocked and reeling at his outburst.