Unexpectedly His(54)
He was right. She owed him an explanation. And making him stand out there in the rain was not acceptable. She put down the pry bar and the hammer, unlocked the deadbolts and opened the double-sided wooden doors. Nick stood on the stone steps beneath an old-fashioned light fixture, dressed in his suit, his tie loose, a bouquet of beat-up daisies in his hand. His hair damp from the rain, he looked tired and gorgeous and guarded.
Her heart ached at the sight of him. “How did you find the right house?”
“That’s all you’ve got? How did you find the right house?” He shook his head and answered. “I’d intended to knock on every door in your exclusive neighborhood, even jump the damned fence if necessary, but disturbing the peace didn’t seem like such a great idea, so I called my sister from the taxi. She gave me your address.” He ran a hand through his damp hair. “Today’s been a shit day. Didn’t want to add getting thrown in the clink to the list.” His jaw tightened as if it took all his control not to drag her out and demand answers. “Sorry, that was insensitive.”
She wanted to kiss away the tension on his face. Instead, she stabbed at her glasses with her index finger. “That’s okay.”
The light from the porch created shadows beneath his eyes, but his tone was unnervingly calm. “It’s raining. May I please come inside?”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” Marianne stepped back and waved him inside, feeling as awkward as she had outside her gym a week ago. One wonderful whirlwind week.
She shut the door and turned around. Nick stood in the middle of the brownstone, his expression registering the sheet-covered furniture, dusty floors, and old farm-style cabinets lined up on the drop cloth next to the kitchen. He looked big and powerful and sexy. Her eyes closed against the fantasies running through her mind. Fantasies of Nick making love to her in her tiny bedroom in the back, filling the place inside her body that needed him, craved him like she’d never craved any other man. A rush of heat suffused her body from deep inside, and she knew it would take every ounce of strength to turn him away.#p#分页标题#e#
His gaze moved over her from her dust-specked glasses to yellow tank top and oversized coveralls all the way down to her sneakered feet. “Renovating started already?”
She nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat.
“See, that doesn’t add up to me.” He took a step toward her and the razor-sharp movement changed the relaxed, cool version of Nick into an edgy-looking, slightly dangerous version, despite the sweet daisies he gripped in his hand. “Why start renovations if you intended to break our agreement?”
“I never intended…” Marianne shut her mouth on the rest of the explanation. Revealing the truth meant revealing his colleague’s threats, and she needed to let him believe she simply wanted out. A difficult choice, but she never should have exposed him to the issue of her father’s conviction in the first place.
“You can’t just pack up and walk out. We have an agreement, and, honey, I have more than fulfilled my side of the bargain.”
More than fulfilled. Maybe it took the scandal and quitting her job for her to reevaluate her life. But it took Nick to start her living it. She’d been keeping up some self-imposed standard for her parents, and then for her fiancé, and it wasn’t until those two standards were destroyed that she started to ask herself, What do I want? Maybe seeing the devotion and love between her parents and how much they stuck together through the ups and downs showed her that money and labels didn’t mean much without love. But it was Nick who made her believe in love. Even better, he made her realize she deserved it.
Marianne looked at him through the tears stinging her eyes.
He took a step closer. “Are you reneging on the engagement? Because it sure as hell feels like you’ve been using me to get some kind of twisted revenge on your ex, and now that you’ve got it, you decided to take off.”
Letting him believe that broke her heart to pieces, but it had to be done. Her whole body trembled in preparation of her words. A six-week engagement had seemed like a perfect solution to both their problems, but Evans was right about one thing. She was smart enough to know better, and now she needed to protect her fiancé.
She drew in a shaky breath. “It was a mistake. The engagement…the lies…everything. All a mistake.”
“Is this about your father’s conviction? About how his conviction might affect my partnership?” he asked, his keen mind right on the money, as always.