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Nothing more intimate that that.
And yet it didn’t feel that easy. Everywhere they turned, people were laughing, smiling, welcoming them. She hoped Liam didn’t have enough patois to understand what was being aimed their way, people clearly seeing them as some kind of couple.
Even now, a handful of street vendors was trying to tempt them with local cuisine cooked right in front of them as they addressed them as the happy newlyweds. Talia squeezed her eyes shut. Tightly.
It terrified her how utterly seduced she was by that simple notion. Even now—all these years on.
She shook her head in frustration.
‘Talia?’ His hand curved around her elbow, strong and steadying. ‘Everything okay?’
The last thing she needed...and the very thing she wanted. Sensations charged around her body like volts of electricity.
She sucked in a deep breath and somehow—she would never know how—spun quickly so that it wrenched at the contact without looking as though that was what she’d intended at all.
‘I’m fine.’ She smiled brightly and convinced herself that she looked serene and happy—not like some demented grinning gecko.
Liam cast her a sceptical glance.
‘What’s happened? A moment ago we were getting on well, now suddenly you seem...edgy.’
‘Nonsense.’ Even she didn’t find her sing-song voice believable.
‘Do you want to try that again, only this time with more feeling?’
She didn’t want to laugh, she didn’t even want to smile. It was too painful to realise how easily he could still read her.
‘Go on,’ he encouraged, clearly sensing her weakening. ‘I’ll feed you the line again. Talia, everything okay?’
‘Idiot.’ She batted his arm lightly with her hand, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards all the same.
‘Better,’ he approved, and warmth flowed through her.
She told herself that she hated how something so simple from him could affect her. Perversely, it made her want to say something to get under his skin, too. Just to prove to herself that she wasn’t the only one on edge
today, despite how well it had seemed to have been going.
‘If you must know...’ she craned her neck up to look at him ‘...they were calling us newlyweds.’
To his credit, Liam didn’t back away the way she’d expected him to. That didn’t mean to say she couldn’t feel that momentary tension from his body.
‘I see.’
‘They think we look loved up.’
Her heart felt as though it was climbing up her chest and into her throat, but Talia stuffed it back down. Memories of the other day still flooded her body every night, it was hardly surprising that they’d flood her mind right now, too.
‘I suppose we might look like a couple,’ he conceded at last, to her surprise.
She twisted her neck all the more.
‘It doesn’t bother you more?’
‘Should it?’
‘The last time I even voiced anything to do with marriage, you told me that it was an outdated institution that wasn’t for you.’
He actually looked shocked and, for a moment, she thought she must have imagined that entire nightmare conversation of three years ago. Then, at last, his expression cleared.
