The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance 2016. Кейт Хьюит
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of pure incredulity. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this!’
‘You expect me to change my whole life! You don’t even bother pretending that I have any say in the matter!’
‘I’m cutting through the red tape,’ Theo pointed out, with irrefutable logic as far as he was concerned. ‘There’s nothing you have here that ties you down.’
‘What about my parents?’
‘Your parents can come to London any time they want,’ Theo pointed out. ‘In fact I assume they already do, given that your father has business interests there...’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘It’s exactly the point—and if you would stop looking at the big picture with irrational feminine logic you would agree with me.’
‘Sometimes,’ Alexa gritted, ‘I really want to hit you.’
‘Who knows...?’ he replied without hesitation. ‘Maybe you will. Although if you do, it won’t be in anger...’
‘What are you talking about?’
Colour crawled into her cheeks as he raised his eyebrows and shot her a slow, deliberate smile. Her treacherous body tingled. Try as she might, she couldn’t bank down the sudden tightening of her nipples, achingly sensitive as they grazed against her lacy bra. And she was aghast to feel spreading dampness between her legs.
‘Never tried a bit of bondage?’ Theo asked, enjoying the hectic flush in her cheeks. ‘I admit I do prefer my women to fully participate in the action—although who knows...? I’m a man who has always been open to new experiences...’
‘I’ve already told you...’ Alexa could barely get the words out because her mouth was so dry. ‘We won’t be... That won’t be part of the deal...’
Did she have any idea how much he disliked being told that there was something he couldn’t do? Theo thought that if she did she might refrain from that approach.
‘Anyway, we’re straying off the topic.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I don’t like feeling that I have no input.’
‘And you’re implying that that’s the way I treat women generally? You’re telling me that you think I’m a bully who takes advantage of women...?’
Alexa cringed because, put like that, it seemed a crazy accusation. If he was a mean bully who took advantage of women why would they care if they were dumped? That blonde who had sidled up to him still had the hots for him. That had been very obvious. And she was the sort of woman who could have any man she wanted. If money had been the only thing keeping her in a relationship with Theo, there was no way she would have looked at him the way a starving man eyed up his next meal.
‘I’m just saying—’
‘I have never bullied a woman in my life before,’ Theo interrupted coldly. ‘I have extremely healthy relationships with the opposite sex. I am honest to a fault. I have never pretended that commitment and marriage is a possible destination. I have always told them upfront that I’m in it for fun and that fun doesn’t last—that beyond that I have nothing to give. But while they’re with me they couldn’t be treated better. Andrea, as a case in point, was showered with presents and taken to the sort of glittering social dos that have gone a long way to kick-starting her career in film.’
Alexa didn’t say anything, because he seemed to expect congratulations for being the sort of guy most women who wanted something other than a ten-second fling would run a mile from. And she was sure that a lot of those women who had been given his rousing speech on not getting thoughts of permanence wouldn’t have been quite as cheerful when they were dispatched as he liked to think.
‘What do you mean that you have nothing to give beyond fun? Why?’
Theo flushed darkly and immediately decided that he had imparted enough information on the subject of his private life. Inside, where the soul stored love, his soul was empty. No reserves left. That place, instead, stored the pain of his father’s reaction to loss and the hurt of his own loss...all the result of that big thing called love.
‘I’m not laying down laws,’ he said snappily, bringing the conversation back to the matter in hand. ‘Feel free to tell me if you think it’s feasible for me to set up camp here for the duration of our short marriage... Even when you have no strenuous objections to moving to London aside from the fact that it was a decision you feel you didn’t reach of your own free will.’
‘I’ve never had anyone make decisions on my behalf.’ She stuck stubbornly to her guns, but she knew that her moral high ground was being eroded from all directions.
‘Then maybe you should sit back and enjoy the novelty.’
Theo knew that that remark was tantamount to waving a red rag at a bull with an axe to grind, but he couldn’t help himself. Something about the way she reddened and pursed her lips and glared made for addictive watching.
Alexa refused to rise to the bait. They exchanged a brief look, during which a lot seemed to be said without any words passing between them. She communicated with a slight tilt of her chin that she knew exactly what game he was playing—knew that he was trying to rile her because it amused him—and he, in turn, acknowledged the truth in that.
The moment unnerved her.
‘I don’t like being told what I can wear and what I can’t,’ she confessed shortly.
‘So I’m taking it that part one of your complaint has been dealt with? You’re in agreement with me that London would be the best base for us?’ He sighed. ‘Decisions have to be made,’ he said heavily, ‘whether you like it or not. Your parents are more than welcome to come and stay with us whenever they want and let’s cut to the chase: we’ll only be together for just as long as it takes for the ink to dry on our marriage certificate...’
‘It’s awful. I never thought that I’d end up getting married for all the wrong reasons...’
It was a sobering thought. An arranged marriage—a marriage of convenience—was a marriage without love, and she had always imagined love and marriage as two words inextricably bound together. Yet to some extent her parents’ marriage had started on lines very similar to those she was now having to endure.
This tangent threatened to lead them down all sorts of unfamiliar paths, and meandering chat about emotional issues just wasn’t his forte, but when Theo looked at the heartfelt expression on her face he found it hard to feel exasperation.
‘Love disappears,’ he said gruffly. ‘And even when it doesn’t it burns so strong that it consumes everything around it and ends up self-imploding.’
They were leaning into one another, unconsciously promoting a space around themselves that excluded everyone else in the restaurant, and for that he was glad—because a bride-to-be with a downcast, near to tears expression could in no way be interpreted as a bride-to-be contemplating the happiest day of her life.
As it looked from the outside, they were two people huddled and whispering sweet nothings to one another.
He entwined his fingers with hers and absently stroked her thumb with his to promote the illusion.
‘I prefer not to think that way. I prefer to think that you can really find your soulmate and, yes, live happily ever after without everything “self-imploding”, as you say. Or else disappearing like water down a drain. That’s not how love works. I might be stupid, but I’d like to think that the man for me, the man who can make me happy, is out there...and I’ll find him. We’ll find one another.’
‘And who’s to say that won’t happen...?’
‘What do you mean?’ For a few seconds Alexa was genuinely disconcerted. Was he talking about them? Insinuating that their marriage of convenience could end up becoming the real thing?
‘I mean you will move on from me and find this man of your