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‘No, but it’s so obvious when you look at the timing. This wedding should have been Chris and Carolyn’s, shouldn’t it?’ She had noticed that some of the early quotes Hazel had stuffed in her desk dated back further than a couple of months, but had dismissed them as examples of her hopeful anticipation. ‘You must have been the reason they had their row and broke the engagement.’
‘Must I? You don’t think that, considering what you know of my character, you might have drawn another, less obvious conclusion—one more favourable to my honour?’
She felt the pain of his deep offence like a quiet shudder in her soul. He was truly outraged that she was calling his personal integrity into question. ‘What do you mean? What other conclusion is there?’
The muscle flickered in his clenched jaw. ‘Nothing. None. It doesn’t matter.’
She didn’t believe him. It had mattered enough to him to cause his tight-lipped control to falter. And if it mattered to him, of course it mattered to her, more than anything…
Joshua wasn’t like Michael. Michael would never have rushed into a burning building to save other people’s lives at a serious risk to his own. Michael had never faced up to his responsibilities—even in death he had evaded making any provision for his son’s future. But Joshua behaved honourably even when it was dangerous to do so, even when it was difficult, or interfered with his own pleasures.
As the boat creamed over the glittering open sea, a clear shaft of light seemed to shine down from the blue vault of heaven and illuminate the answer in her heart.
But how to break down that wall of steely self-control and make him admit it?
‘So…if you weren’t sleeping with Carolyn before the big fight, then it must have happened after. After her horrible row with Chris she came running to his big brother for comfort, and instead you took ruthless advantage of her vulnerability—is that the scenario you expect me to believe?’
He picked up his glass again and took a long swallow. ‘I don’t expect anything of you.’
Now he was lying!
‘Is it your baby—or Chris’s? Or are the dates that you both slept with her so entwined that neither of you know which one of you is the father?’
His head jerked back at her slicing scorn. ‘It’s a Wade. That’s all that’s important.’
‘And you don’t mind marrying your brother’s discards?’
He finished the drink, his knuckles white around the glass. ‘Leave it, Regan.’
She was beginning to get an even stronger inkling of the way his mind worked. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like it when the tables are turned and I’m the one asking all the intrusive questions?’ she said recklessly. ‘Maybe you three had a slightly incestuous ménage à trois going…does it turn you on to share a woman in bed with your brother?’
‘Be very—very, careful what you say next,’ he said thickly. ‘In fact, it would be an extremely good idea if you shut up altogether!’
Adrenaline raced through her veins. ‘Or what? You’ll throw me to the sharks? What price your honour then? Oh, I forgot…you don’t have any! So maybe Carolyn wasn’t a willing party in this fascinating scenario of yours at all. Maybe it wasn’t seduction on your part, but rape—’
‘I’ve never even touched her—!’ he roared, and broke off, his eyes blazing with silver wrath.
‘But you’re going to marry her all the same.’ She was breathless in horrified awe. ‘You’re going to marry a woman you don’t love, and who doesn’t love you, in order to give your brother’s baby the family name, because for some reason he’s baulking at marriage and unplanned fatherhood. What you can’t force him to do you’re going to do yourself. My God, that’s positively Gothic! Don’t you think that’s carrying your sense of honour to a ridiculous extreme—?’
She squeaked as she was snatched off her feet, dangling by her upper arms between two iron fists.
‘I told you to shut up!’
‘But you didn’t tell me what would happen if I didn’t,’ she said breathlessly, pushing her hands against his c
hest and pointing her sandalled toes in a vain attempt to touch the deck.
He began to slowly lower her towards him, the muscles in his neck and shoulders bulging with the effort. ‘It wouldn’t have mattered if I had. You wanted me to lose control. I would have taken apart a man for saying those things—’
‘But I’m a woman.’ The smouldering acknowledgement flared in his eyes and her voice went abruptly and embarrassingly husky. ‘B-besides, violence never really solves anything—’
‘The hell it doesn’t,’ he growled, and kissed her—a hot, savage clash of mouths that made her go up in flames as he hooked his arm under her knees and swung her up into his arms, carrying her from the bright sunlight through the cool luxury of the lounge and down the narrow companionway into the dim depths of his cabin.
‘You said we weren’t going to do this,’ she gasped, kicking off her shoes as he set her lightly on her feet and peeled his still buttoned shirt over his head.
He cupped her face, and drew her mouth under his.
‘God forgive me, I lied…’
