Page 44 of Her Forbidden Bargain

“That we’d live together,” he answered.

“What’s the difference in living together and being married?” she asked. “Everyone already thinks we’re engaged.”

“I don’t give a damn what everyone thinks. We both know that we aren’t really engaged,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her.

She shook her head, fiddling with the ring he’d given her, and realized that her shirt was unbuttoned and she was still laying in the middle of his bed. She sat up and quickly refastened her shirt.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said, climbing off the king-size bed. “I never know what to expect from you, Tristan.”

“I do not understand,” he said.

And for the first time, she realized that he really didn’t understand what she was talking about. Because Tristan was always looking out for himself. For his own desires, his own safety. She had been thinking that because he showered her with attention and gifts, he was caring for her.

“I love you. Do you remember that?”

He stood up and walked over to her. He touched her so softly, tracing the lines of her face with his fingertip. “I do remember it. Hearing you say you love me is something that I think about a lot.”

“And…?”

“And that’s why I want us to continue living together.”

She staggered back away from him. “Did you ask me because you feel sorry for me?”

He shook his head. “I asked because I’m tired of being alone. And you bring something to my life that I never thought to find again.”

“Love,” she said. “I bring love to your life.”

“No, you bring that to yourself. To me you bring companionship and friendship…an end to the loneliness I’ve felt when I’m around other couples.”

She didn’t know what to say. Because she had the feeling that he’d asked her to live with him out of pity. She realized for the first time that her father had done her a huge favor by leaving. Because Tristan staying with her out of guilt or pity made her feel worse than being left behind.

“What are you going to do?” Tristan asked Sheri. He could tell that things weren’t going the way he wanted them to. If there were a way for him to go back ten minutes, he would have kept his mouth shut.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. Obviously I gave you my word that I’d stay with you until the party and that’s…in two days, right? So after the party I’ll move back to the brownstone.”

He knew he shouldn’t be mad at Sheri. But he was. If she wasn’t so stuck in her bourgeois American idea of what a relationship should be, then he’d have everything he wanted. “Running back to your favorite hiding place?”

“I’m not running,” she said, crossing her arms around her waist and staring up at him with those big wounded doe eyes.

But this time he didn’t let the eyes affect him. He knew better. She was as manipulative as the other women he’d dated. The ones that had always wanted to be Mrs. Tristan Sabina and had schemed to get there. Sheri was the same, she just went about it differently. “It sure seems that way from where I’m standing. You said you loved me, and now that I won’t marry you…you’re going back to the same place you’ve always run to.”

She dropped her arms and stalked over to him. “Well, you’d know all about running. Of course, you hide out in the public eye. Dating a bunch of different shallow women. Acting like nothing in life affects you.”

Tristan couldn’t argue with that. “What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t hedge, Sheri. Tell me what you want. How can I make this right for you?”

She turned away and then glanced back at him. “You could love me.”

He didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m…I can’t do that.”

She nodded. “Then you have nothing I want.”

She walked to the bedroom door and he realized that she was leaving. That she was going to walk out that door and he wasn’t ready for her to go.

“Sheri.”