“Yes,” he ground out.
Trembling, she closed her eyes. Then, bursting into tears, she stood up and reached across the table, throwing her arms around him with a heartfelt sob that made all the other patrons of the small restaurant turn their way.
He’d made her deliriously happy with his lie. He could hear it in her tears. He could feel it in the way her soft, curvaceous body swayed against his as she clutched him tightly, as if she never wanted to let him go.
“We’re engaged,” he announced grimly to the other diners, and there was a breathless awwwww, a scattering of applause.
Paris was the legendary City of Light. A city for lovers. And he’d ruthlessly used her dreams against her.
After her year of heartbreak and grief she truly believed all her romantic hopes had come true. And even though part of him recoiled at the lie he’d just told, he couldn’t quite regret it. Because he’d won. Now he could keep her forever.
Even if it meant he’d lost his soul.
“Come on,” Théo said roughly, grabbing her hand. “Let’s get you a wedding dress.”
CHAPTER SIX
BY THE next morning, Théo was starting to fear that he was going to lose far more than his soul.
After he’d gotten the enormous diamond on her finger, he’d driven her straight to the most expensive bridal shop on the Avenue Montaigne and bought the first wedding dress that Carrie adored. Then he’d driven her immediately to the airport.
They’d made love four times since then—once on the jet, three times more since they’d arrived back at the château—and he was amazed at the change in her. He’d never experienced such openhearted passion, such fearless devotion. She’d given herself to him now, heart and soul, held nothing back. She touched him constantly and was always reaching over for a kiss. She told him that she loved him again and again, and each time he repeated the words back to her Carrie’s face would light up with brilliant new joy.
She didn’t seem to notice that the more he said I love you, the more flat and dull his voice became.
Now, she was upstairs packing Henry’s baby clothes for their trip to Seattle. They would get married in her home-town tomorrow, with her family in attendance. When he’d agreed to her plan, she’d thrown her arms around him and wept.#p#分页标题#e#
“You are so good to me,” she’d whispered. “Thank you for understanding. You are the most wonderful, kind man in the world.”
Wonderful? Kind? Because he was allowing her to have her family at her wedding instead of bullying her into an instant drive-through wedding in Las Vegas?
Théo was starting to feel a constant pain that started at the base of his skull and then radiated down his spine to the vicinity of his heart. Or at least the place where his heart should be.
He had lied to her. He’d lured her into marriage under false pretenses. Théo tried to tell himself that it was for a good cause—to raise his son in a solid home—but he knew his motivation hadn’t been entirely noble.
He couldn’t bear the thought of any man touching Carrie. He couldn’t endure the idea of her ever looking up so breathlessly, with such tender love in her eyes, into the face of another. Her love belonged to Théo—only to him.
Even though he was a selfish liar who did not love her.
Pacing the length of his dark, masculine study as Carrie packed bags upstairs for a flight that would leave in an hour, Théo tried desperately to shrug off his conscience.
He’d won everything he ever wanted. But at what price? Was this another Açoazul S.A.? A Brazilian steel company bought dear, not remotely worth the price he’d paid?
And what would it do to Carrie, to be broken up for her most valuable assets? Her assets. He froze in place, clawing his hair back with one hand. Carrie wasn’t a business. She was the kindest, sweetest woman he’d ever known. And her most valuable assets weren’t just her skills as a mother, or her passion as a wife. It wasn’t even the warmth and comfort she brought to his cold château.
It was the light in her eyes. Her cheerful optimism. Her belief in the best in people. Her ideals and dreams were the core of her. If Théo married her, ruthlessly letting that light in her eyes go dim as she realized his deception, he would kill the best part of her. Her heart.
He wasn’t taking her to a wedding, or even a funeral, he realized. He was plotting her murder.
Melodramatic nonsense, he told himself angrily. But it felt true. Had Théo ever once known what it felt like before to be truly loved? Had his home ever felt so warm before her arrival? Had he ever known such depths of passionate ecstasy with any woman?