Oliver tried to close his eyes but they wouldn’t cooperate. Neither would they focus on any member of the Graham family that wasn’t Bella. She still looked a little pale perhaps, but not enough to attract attention. And she was smiling. He saw the way her mother touched her cheek and how her younger sisters, who looked to be in their early twenties and were obviously twins, were jostling for the prime position of being next to Bella.
Twins in the family. Good grief…
I can’tmarryher, he thought desperately.
‘Why ever not?’
Oh, God, the words must have escaped.
‘She…’ What was that word Bella kept throwing back at him? ‘She’s… It’s not appropriate.’
Lady Dorothy made a snorting sound. ‘That’s a ridiculous thing to say, Oliver. It will be a lucky man indeed that gets chosen by Bella. She’s adorable.’ Her mouth twitched. ‘It’s pretty obvious that youlikeher. At least I hope it is.’
Oliver was silent. Partly because it was excruciatingly embarrassing to have his mother comment on his sex life at all, let alone suggest that he would be taking a woman he had no feelings for at all to bed.
He couldn’t deny that he liked Bella. And, although like was far too insipid a word for any feelings that Bella Graham stirred in him, it would have to do for the moment. He certainly couldn’t think of another one while he was still feeling so shocked by this… betrayal?
‘She’s…’ Again, Oliver was lost for a word. How did you sum up someone with Bella’s exuberance? Her confident, bubbly, devil-may-care, let’s-break-the-rules approach to life? One that inevitably led to disaster?
‘She’sflighty.’
Worse, she was untrustworthy.
She’d lied to him. Okay, it was his fault as well. He’d been just as irresponsible, hadn’t he? And maybe that was what was making him feel so angry. He’d wanted to be just like Bella and embrace the freedom of ignoring consequences. And he’d known it was a stupid thing to do. The one time he’d decided to take a leaf out of someone like Bella’s book and not step away from such overwhelming temptation and look where it had led. People were going to get hurt by the repercussions.
‘She’s a joy,’ his mother corrected him.
Oliver did manage to close his eyes for a moment now. Yes… that was a much better word. Joy implied happiness. Light. The kind of brightness that Bella left in a room even after she’d gone somewhere else. With a sigh, he opened his eyes and looked at her family again and this time, he was aware of an odd, unsettling, yearning sensation. That feeling of missing out again, without being able to articulate precisely what it was he was missing out on.
Except that this time it was easy. It was the close bonds evident in this group of people. The picture of a family.
‘She wants something out of life that I could never give her,’ he said.
‘Like what?’
‘Overseas travel.Fun. A dozen kids.’
And a man who could keep up with her and embrace a life of chaos. A lucky man, his mother had said. And she’d be right.
A man who would end up raising Oliver’s child?
Now,thatwas a very disturbing thought.
His mother was silent for a long moment. Then she asked quietly, ‘What is it that you want, Oliver?’
To get off this emotional merry-go-round, he thought vehemently. It was too much. It was confusing. He needed something solid to cling to, and wasn’t that a lesson he’d learned long ago? That feelings that hurt could be controlled if you could push them far enough away. Bury them with the things that you could control. Things that might not bring happiness but would, at least, bring satisfaction.
‘To do my job to the best of my ability,’ he said aloud.
His words echoed in his own ears, sounding like he was reading from a manifest or job description or something. It wasn’t enough, was it? He searched for something he could add to satisfy himself as much as his mother.
‘To do the right thing,’ he heard himself continue. Maybe he could add that he wanted to be successful. To know that he’d contributed in a positive way to the lives of people around him and not caused any harm. Oliver cleared his throat to add his final thought.
‘To carry on the kind of contribution to society that you’ve always done through your charity work.’ Good grief, now he sounded positively pompous. Stuffy. Exactly like the impression everybody had of him anyway?
‘Is that all?’
Oliver blinked. ‘Isn’t it enough?’
