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‘And what do I say about “us”?’ Saskia asked, before she could stop herself.
It wasn’t exactly the way she’d intended to get to the subject of accepting his marriage proposal, but she supposed it would achieve the same thing.
Instead of replying, however, Malachi simply started the engine, the power of the vehicle humming all around them whilst they pulled away, leaving her fighting to unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
They were speeding along the motorway before she succeeded. He was a good driver, but then, why wouldn’t he be? She got the impression that Malachi Gunn was the best at everything he chose to do.
And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, she considered, since she’d been feeling a little lost ever since she’d found out she was pregnant. Maybe now was the perfect time to tell him everything she’d been reconsidering. Everything she’d spent the past few days practising how to say.
She opened her mouth to speak.
‘I apologise for the caveman routine the other week,’ he announced unexpectedly.
Her well-rehearsed speech flew out of the window. ‘Pardon?’
Something hitched inside Saskia. She couldn’t remember Andy apologising for anything, ever. Even when he’d been cheating on her. He’d always claimed apologising was a sign of weakness, and she, to her shame, had come to believe him.
Now she realised just how foolish she’d been believing that, too.
It didn’t make Malachi look weak at all. Quite the opposite. He looked utterly secure in his own skin. Plus, as she didn’t imagine he was a man who often had to apologise, the very fact that he even had made her feel valued. Respected.
‘Insisting on marriage,’ he was saying as she yanked herself back to the present. ‘Being a couple. That was...ill-thought-out.’
Saskia’s mouth went dry.
Just as she had decided that it was a good idea.
She should have kept her distance after all—emotionally and physically.
Every fear she’d ever had crashed over her at once. This had to be how it felt to drown.
Saskia tried to rearrange her thoughts, but they jumbled together like a tangle of wires that she couldn’t even begin to find the ends of.
‘You don’t want to be part of our lives after all?’ She barely recognised her own voice. It sounded so detached and...alien.
‘No—there’s no question that I will be a part of your lives,’ he corrected. ‘But you were right to argue that marriage would overcomplicate things. It isn’t the solution.’
‘I see,’ she managed, even though she didn’t see at all. ‘So what now?’
His momentary silence caught her off guard, and she swivelled her head to find him looking at her. Gauging. Assessing. She tried to relax, for fear of him reading every emotion etched clearly on her face, but she wasn’t sure she had succeeded.
Finally he turned back, to concentrate on the road, and she exhaled silently. Hopefully she hadn’t given herself away completely, but at least he didn’t look entirely at ease himself. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought his set jaw meant he felt as at sea as she did.
She tossed the idea over and over in her mind. On the one hand Malachi wasn’t the kind of man she could imagine second-guessing himself. On the other... Well, her gut was telling her he was playing his cards close to his chest. That he still wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him.
‘Now,’ he echoed firmly, ‘we find a solution that works all round. Now we talk.’
‘And by talk you mean we won’t end up in bed this time?’
She was hectoring him. Trying to get a rise out of him. The thing was, she couldn’t figure out why. Or, more accurately, she was pretending she couldn’t. Either way, Malachi didn’t look amused. If anything, he seemed to grimace.
‘That won’t be happening again, believe me.’
‘Right.’ She told herself she shouldn’t feel hurt by his wintry tone. ‘Good to know.’
Was he trying to convince her, or himself? Could he turn off his attraction just like that? Because there was no way she was able to do it.
They lapsed into another edgy silence.
