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The lift doors closed in front of her.
‘You can’t do this! Put me down!’
Abruptly he leaned forward and she slid ignominiously from his shoulder. Immediately she rushed at him, but he caught her easily, holding her flailing arms by the wrists.
‘Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. I told you—I just want to talk.’
Yanking her arms away, she ignored him. Opening her bag, she pulled out her phone. ‘I am going to call the police and have you arrested, and you can see how you like talking to them—’
Taking her phone away from her ear, she stared at the screen irritably.
‘Let me guess. No signal?’ Malachi said helpfully. ‘You won’t get one inside the lift.’
‘Fine!’ she spat. ‘I’ll ring when we get to the suite.’
He nodded. ‘That would work.’
Pausing, he turned and opened a small door in the side of the lift, slid a card into it and swiped it down.
‘Only we’re not going to the suite.’
The lift stopped moving.
Addie stared at him incredulously.
‘Have you lost your mind?’ she said finally. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘I told you. We didn’t finish our conversation.’
‘There is nothing else to talk about,’ she said furiously. ‘Why do you think I left? I don’t have anything to say to you.’
He nodded. ‘I know. And you don’t have to say anything. You just have to listen. I’ll do all the talking.’
‘It’s too late, Malachi. If you wanted to talk to me you should have done it an hour ago.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘In fact you should have done it five years ago.’
He leaned back against the doors, his face hardening. ‘As I recall, you didn’t give me a chance.’
She stepped towards him, her fingers curling into fists. ‘That is not what happened. I tried to talk to you and you just walked away.’
‘It was our wedding!’ His face was taut. ‘You were making—’
‘What? A scene? Oh, I’m sorry—what was I supposed to do? I’d just heard two men talking about how lucky it was that your new wife had such strong ties with the local community. How it had made such a difference to getting your plans for a new casino approved.’
‘That’s not what happened,’ he said savagely, and he stepped towards her, his eyes locking on to hers.
‘So that isn’t why you married me?’ Her whole body was shaking with anger but her heart contracted painfully at the memory. ‘Tell me I got it wrong. Go on. Tell me.’
Looking at his stricken face, she felt suddenly nauseous.
‘You can’t because it’s true.’
‘No.’ His voice echoed loudly around the lift. ‘I admit when I asked you to marry me I thought it would be good for business.’ Tipping his head back, he breathed out sharply, his face twisting. ‘But then things changed. I started to care about you—’
He took a step forward and with shock she saw that his hands were shaking.
‘I missed you when you weren’t there and I looked forward to seeing you.’ He shook his head vehemently, his eyes dropping away. ‘You have to understand, Addie. I’d never felt like that before. I didn’t know what I was feeling.’
She looked up at him uncertainly. ‘What were you feeling?’
