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I frowned. ‘So what on earth did you see in her? And is it even possible to shop and party that much...?’ I muttered.
‘Believe me, she gave it a good try. And after a few months we barely saw each other. I was about to break it off when she told me she was pregnant.’
The similarities crushed me harder. Neo and I would never have met again had it not been for the baby.
‘You know how else you’re different from Anneka?’ he said.
I hated these comparisons. Hated the other woman’s name on his lips. But I’d started this. And, for good or ill, the need to know more about what had shaped this man who made me terrified for my heart’s well-being wouldn’t abate.
‘Enlighten me. Please.’
He ignored my droll tone, his eyes growing even more incisive as he stared at me, as if the list he was enumerating was necessary to him. Essential, even.
Maybe he needed to scrape together my worthy characteristics in order to be able to accept me as the mother of his child? And if he failed? If I wasn’t enough? Anguish seared deeper, but he was still talking, so I forced myself to listen.
‘You signed the prenup without so much as a quibble. Anneka got a team of lawyers to negotiate every clause—especially the one that stated that should I perish while we were married she would receive one hundred percent of my assets, including the funds I’d set aside for charity. Your attention to detail in the boardroom is exceptional. But I’m willing to bet you can’t even remember the details of the financial package in the prenup you signed?’
I shook my head. ‘The only part I cared about was what happened to our child,’ I replied.
His arrogant smile widened. ‘So tell me again how you plan to fleece me?’
I shrugged away the taunt, still consumed with wanting to know why he’d bothered to get together with a woman like Anneka if those were her true colours.
But I knew the answer. She was beautiful, vivacious and he’d thought she was carrying his child. It had become clear over the last few weeks that there was nothing Neo wouldn’t do for his child. No sacrifice he wouldn’t make.
My heart dipped in alarm and, yes, I felt a bite of jealousy at the thought that the all-encompassing feeling would never extend beyond his child. Not after what he’d experienced at the hands of another woman. Not after what I’d done to him even before our first meeting.
I was simply the vessel carrying what he wanted most in the world. How soon after I served my purpose would I be relegated to the background?
That anguishing thought drove my next question. ‘So I’m a step or two up from the previous model—no pun intended. But I still have question marks over my head, don’t I?’
‘Don’t we all?’ he drawled.
‘No, that’s not going to fly. You’ve just listed the ways I’m different from your ex, but what does that difference mean to you, Neo?’ I pressed, an almost fatalistic urge smashing away my precious self-preservation.
‘That remains to be seen,’ he replied, and that aloofness I’d fooled myself into thinking was gone for ever resurged, saturating every inch of his perfect face.
‘You mean until I prove my worth to you? Add the ultimate title of true mother to your child to that list? Maybe then you’ll stop comparing me to her?’
He shrugged.
Stone-like dread settled in my midriff, depriving my lungs of air. Slowly but unrelentingly, perhaps even since that first night on Neostros, I’d allowed this thing to go beyond doing the right thing for my baby. I’d reached out, taken what I wanted for myself despite the lingering suspicion that my actions would come with emotional consequences.
And now, with this account of what had shaped him, he’d bared my own weaknesses to me.
I started to slide out of bed, froze when he reached for me.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘I’m going to shower. Alone.’
> Tension rippled through his frame, his eyes narrowing to ferocious slits. ‘We can’t go back, Sadie. It’s better you’re aware of that. That you accept it.’
‘You’re right—we can’t go back. But with your feet firmly stuck in clay you’re not going to move forward either, are you?’
Again his silence spoke for him.
‘Well, guess what? You may be stuck, but I’m not.’
