Momentary Marriage(93)

She felt locked in his gaze, caught and lost. Hurt, disillusionment and rage threatened to swamp her. She loved him, dammit, and he was a snake in the grass. He was dishonest and power-hungry and he didn’t love her back. “Was I some sort of a challenge to you? Rich men get bored sometimes. Did you just want to see if you could get me to cave in? You’ve been using me—“

“That’s not true," Jared said flatly, breaking into her diatribe, giving no sign he was aware of the doorman walking through the lobby behind them. Anthony cast them a surreptitious glance but said nothing, punching the elevator button and returning to the door.

Kelsey’s words tangled in a mass at the back of her throat, her gaze searching his face as if to find the truth.

He hesitated. “I did…maneuver Amy, a little—“

Kelsey’s laugh was short and hard.

“Doug needed a shake-up,” he insisted. “He was infatuated with you. You were clueless and Amy was hurting.”

“So, out of the goodness of your heart, you offered her a job, and when I needed a husband, you offered to marry me,” Kelsey concluded, her wrath not appeased. “Why? Why did you marry me? Answer me and don’t lie!”

“You needed a husband,” he said slowly before pausing. “I thought we’d be good together.”

Jared saw the disbelief on her face, the skepticism radiating from her. Even now, she looked incredibly beautiful, her face flushed with fury, her eyes red with anger and tears. The normally smooth sweep of her dark hair was fluffed around her face, as if the wind had kicked it up and she hadn’t thought to straighten it.

So much for his floral gesture.

Seeing her so miserable at the agency meeting had left him aching to make everything better. He’d ordered the flowers hoping to tread the fine line, luring her closer without declaring his own feelings.

He couldn’t admit his love now, couldn’t get the words to form in his brain, much less get them out of his mouth. Said now, the words would seem like one more manipulation.

He kept thinking, too, that at the slightest difficulty, she’d bailed out on him. Taken her marbles and gone home. The past month of loving and sharing their days and nights hadn’t meant anything when she’d come face to face with the possibility of a pregnancy. He knew that having a child wasn’t the issue—it was having his child that sent her over the edge. Any thought of genuine commitment to him and their marriage, that scared her. Taking a chance on a future with him.

She couldn’t take a risk on him, couldn’t believe in him. The thought speared through Jared and he went blank, unable to do anything else but stare at her wordlessly.

She’d told him she wasn’t pregnant and he’d believed her, but the thought of her conceiving and hiding the fact haunted him. She’d openly acknowledged she wanted children at some point in time. She’d gone ballistic over his comment to her mother and she’d never given any sign that they had a real future together.

But when she’d thought she was pregnant with his child, she couldn’t get far enough away from him.

The image of her pregnant shook him. Kelsey nursing their child at her breast. Bearing the child, alone. Raising it, alone. The thought of a child of his growing up in New York unbeknownst to him made his stomach clench.

He looked into her beautiful face and made himself confront the likelihood that he’d never be able to win her over. Maybe she was scarred too deeply, hurt too badly by the abandonment of her father and the merry-go-round of stepfathers. Maybe she couldn’t love any man.

“So,” Kelsey said in scathing disbelief, after waiting for a response he couldn’t find, “you married me because we ‘might be good together’? Don’t give me that crap! Have you ever made any major decision on such a flimsy basis? Do you marry every woman who might possibly suit you?”

“No,” he admitted slowly, seeing the fear behind her anger and hating it. Hating that he couldn’t erase a lifetime of disappointment and desertion. He’d tried and failed.

He loved her, but telling her now wouldn’t do either one of them any good. He’d be opening his already-bruised heart for another blow…and she wouldn’t believe him anyway.

She had his number on the maneuvering. He’d worked the situation trying to get what he wanted and now he was caught in a web of his own weaving.

“I was wrong to marry you the way I did,” he heard himself say. “You’re too afraid to fall in love. You dated like a woman who’s determined never to get caught. Never seeing any man more than a few months. Never letting anyone too close. I don’t know what made me think this could ever work.”