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‘You agreed to this marriage.’ He ran his finger over the band, soothing the red skin there, and after a moment she stopped trying to pull it away again. Progress. ‘You even pushed this ring into place. Nobody forced you into anything, and the only thing you signed before we said our vows was a meaningless invitation.’
‘I know that.’ She sounded irritable now. Flynn never imagined that could be a step up from seductive but, under the circumstances, he was happy to go with it. ‘And I know we need the paperwork so that we can get out of this whole mess neatly when the time comes—’
‘That’s not why.’ They were married now. It was time to disabuse her of any notion that this marriage was a temporary thing for him. ‘We need it so that you can be my wife, completely, without any of this confusion or people talking about us. We need it to make us official. Legitimate.’
Helena’s eyes narrowed and she pulled her hand from his, but he could still feel the phantom memory of the cool metal of her ring against his fingertips.
‘You mean to make you legitimate,’ she said, her glare accusing. ‘You need the paperwork to prove you’re really part of the family. You think it’ll make it easier for you as CEO when your dad steps down, now Zeke’s gone.’
‘That’s part of it,’ Flynn allowed. ‘But not all.’
Helena stood, shifting so her weight was on one leg and her hip cocked out for her hand to rest on it. It emphasised the curve of her waist in a way Flynn really shouldn’t be thinking about right now, and he tried to focus on the unhappy curl of her lips rather than anything below them.
‘Really?’ she asked, sounding unconvinced. ‘Then tell me this. If you’d married Thea today, would you be down here drinking brandy alone? Or would you be in bed with her right now?’
CHAPTER FIVE
HELENA ALMOST DIDN’T want to hear the answer. It was a stupid question—one that neither of them could escape from now it’d been asked. Maybe that was for the best. If things had gone to plan, Flynn would have married her sister today. She knew that Thea hadn’t loved him, but she’d never really given much thought to how Flynn felt about Thea. She’d just assumed, given his usual pragmatic, spreadsheet-based approach to the whole thing, that it was a business convenience.
She’d even wondered idly once or twice if Flynn was gay and his marriage to Thea an elaborate cover to hide the truth from Ezekiel. Heaven knew the old man was hidebound and rigid about everything else. No reason to assume that he’d deal with a son who liked men any better than he’d dealt with a son who ran out and abandoned the family business like Zeke had.
Flynn wasn’t gay. No gay guy could have kissed her the way he had at the reception. And, besides, she knew when a guy wanted her—and Flynn’s eyes when she’d walked in had spoken volumes. Lusty volumes of erotic poetry.
He wanted her. But he wasn’t going to take her, even offered up on a plate. In Helena’s experience, there were limited reasons for that sort of restraint—and they usually came down to being faithful to someone else.
What if Flynn had really loved Thea? What if he was heartbroken right now, drowning his sorrows in brandy while she swanned in wearing white satin and tried to seduce him?
Could she have made a bigger mess of this? But there was no going back now. She needed to know the truth.
‘Tell me honestly, Flynn. Would you have slept with Thea tonight?’ she asked again, and Flynn’s gaze slipped away from hers.
‘Probably.’ His shoulders lifted slightly then slumped. ‘We’d talked about...well...getting to know each other as man and wife, from the start.’
Helena’s jaw tightened. She could almost imagine the conversation, probably squeezed in between a meeting about the quarterly projections and a client presentation. Thea, cool and calm and business-like, the way she only ever was when she was working, not dating. Flynn, as unflappable as ever, giving equal gravity to the budget and his sex life.
One of them had probably even said the words: in the interest of mutual satisfaction or something.
‘But it was different with Thea,’ Flynn said, a hint of apology in his voice. ‘We were...well, I was...’
In love, Helena finished for him in her head. And that was something Helena couldn’t match up to. She’d thought she could be enough for him, for now. But not if he was in love with her sister.
Flynn sighed. ‘We had paperwork,’ he said in the end, as if that explained everything.
For Flynn, it probably did.
‘That’s all you want from this marriage? Paperwork?’ Helena gripped the back of the chair she stood behind, keeping it between them like a shield. A screen, at least. How humiliating to be having this conversation in almost see-through nightwear. How had this ever seemed like a good idea?
‘No.’ That was his firm voice. His don’t-mess-with-me business voice. She’d heard of it, mostly from Thea, but he’d never used it on her before. They’d never been close enough for him to have the opportunity, not since she was fifteen.
‘Then what do you want?’ She didn’t care if she was pleading. She needed to make sense of this if she hoped to have any chance of sleeping tonight. She swept a hand down the side of her negligee. ‘You don’t want this. You don’t want happily ever after. But you don’t seem to want a quickie divorce either. Whatever happens next, we’re stuck with each other for at least the next two weeks. So tell me—what is it you do want?’
‘I want a wife. I want paperwork. I want something to follow the plan just once.’ He grabbed his glass and downed the remaining brandy. Helena just stared at him. Was that Flynn losing his temper? she wondered. She’d never seen it before. And still, it seemed so...insubstantial.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as if he’d thrown the glass at her or something. ‘It’s just...it’s been a long day, and not one bit of it has gone the way I expected. I’m still...adjusting.’
To being married to the wrong woman. To losing the woman he’d actually wanted to marry. She couldn’t even blame him.
‘Right,’ she said, as if her life hadn’t been turned upside down a couple of times in the last twenty-four hours, too. ‘I can understand that.’
Flynn looked up, his eyes red and tired. ‘For you too, I know. It’s been...’
‘One hell of a day.’
‘Yeah.’ They stared at each other for a long moment, and Helena felt the knowledge that she was tied to this man, for better or for worse, sinking into her bones in a way it never had when she’d said the words.
This was her future, whatever happened next. He’d always be her husband, even if he became an ex. They were joined—and she didn’t understand the first thing about him.
This Flynn, the one she’d seen tonight, was nothing like the one her fourteen-year-old self had thought herself in love with. He wasn’t kind, noble and knowing. He wasn’t even the unfeeling, emotionally detached man she’d assumed he had to be to deal with his fiancée running out on him. This Flynn cared. He felt. He hurt.
And this was the man she’d married. The man she intended to keep secrets from until they could unmarry.
‘I should...’ She wiggled her fingers towards the door. ‘Sleep would probably help. Both of us.’
‘Yeah.’ Flynn sighed. ‘I’ll head up in a moment, too. I just have one phone call to make.’
‘Now? It’s two in the morning, Flynn.’
‘I know. But this can’t wait.’
‘I’ll never understand that,’ she admitted. ‘You and your dad—and Thea. The way you’re married to the business. I mean...’ She winced as she realised what she’d said.
But it didn’t seem to register with Flynn. ‘This isn’t business.’
Not business? Then who would take his call at two a.m.? Unless...was he phoning Thea? She didn’t want to know if he was.
Helena turned to leave, but p
aused in the doorway as she remembered her original plan for their sleeping arrangements—before the negligee and the discovery that her husband might well be in love with her sister, even now.
‘I thought...maybe it would be a good idea for you to sleep in my old room? Tonight, at least. I had the maid move your things. It’s right next to the bridal suite, so it makes it a little less likely for you to be caught out on the other side of the building in the morning, when you’re supposed to be ravishing your new wife.’
He actually flinched at the words and Helena swallowed down the spike of pain she felt at that. No, she definitely wasn’t enough for Flynn Ashton, even after everything she’d done today.
‘Okay. I’ll do that then. I’ll see you in the morning, Helena.’ He said it kindly, a sop to her poor hopeful ideas of a night with her husband.
‘Yeah. In the morning.’
Maybe things would look brighter with the sunrise. They sure couldn’t look much darker.
