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She stared at him, sensing that somewhere a door was closing, a key was turning. Soon there would be no way out of this mess.
She felt her temper flare. ‘Fine. But I’m not marrying anyone—especially you—unless you tell me why you need a wife.’
It wasn’t just curiosity. She needed to assert herself. Needed him to know that she wasn’t just some puppet on a string.
She folded her arms in front of her chest. ‘I don’t need details. Just keep it short and simple.’
She held her breath as his eyes narrowed into knifepoints, and she knew he was gauging how much he needed to tell her. Finally he shrugged and met her gaze, cool and back in control again.
‘I’m trying to close a deal. For a building I want to buy. The owner is old-fashioned...sentimental. He’ll only sell to someone he trusts. Someone he believes shares his values. I need him to trust me and for that to happen he needs to see my warmer, softer side. Marriage is the simplest way to demonstrate that to him.’
She breathed out slowly. There was a kind of warped logic to his argument.
‘But surely I can’t be your only solution? What if you hadn’t found me in your office? What would you do then?’
His eyes were watching hers. ‘But I did find you. And you’re perfect.’
Her heart thudded against her ribs and she felt her cheeks grow warm. ‘I—I am?’
Rollo felt his groin grow hard, his body responding not only to her tentative question but to the flush of colour in her cheeks, the pulse jerking at the base of her throat. She was like a flint striking, sparking against him, catching fire.
And fire burned.
Ignoring the twitch of lust in his groin, he breathed out slowly. ‘Yes. You’re single. And you’re an actress. But primarily, and most important, I can trust you to be compliant.’
Daisy knew she had gone white.
‘Compliant?’ Her hands were trembling.
‘Out-of-work actresses are ten a penny. But I need someone I can depend on. And as your brother’s freedom and future are in my hands I’m confident I can rely completely on your discretion.’
He sounded so calm and controlled that she thought she might throw up. Was this how people got to the top in business? By turning every situation to their advantage no matter what the collateral damage?
‘But, of course, if you’d rather take your chances with the police...’
He let his sentence drift off as Daisy stared past him. She felt bruised, battered and beaten.
‘How long would it be for?’ she said dully.
‘A year. Then we’d go our separate ways and the slate would be wiped clean.’
She flinched inside. He made it sound so simple. The perfectly packaged, one-use-only relationship. An entirely disposable marriage. And maybe it was that simple for him, for clearly his brain worked in an entirely different way from hers.
Her heart contracted. But it was so different from the marriage she’d always imagined. Given her failed romantic history, she knew she was more likely to win a starring role on Broadway, but what she wanted was a relationship based on love and trust and honesty. Just like her parents’.
Only that was the polar opposite of what she and Rollo would have if she agreed to this stupid fake marriage.
The thought made her feel utterly alone.
Pushing back her shoulders, she lifted her head, a flare of defiance sparking inside her. ‘And you’re okay with that?’ she asked flatly. ‘It’s how you always imagined your marriage?’
Leaning back, Rollo swivelled his chair to face the window. He knew that her question was more or less rhetorical. But the blood was beating in his veins with swift, hot, unreasonable fury.
For a moment he gazed out across the city, silently battling the sickening panic and feeling of helplessness stirred up by their conversation. The short, expurgated answer was no—it wasn’t the way he’d imagined his marriage. Not because it would be fake and devoid of feeling, but because he had never once imagined being married at all.
Why would he? He knew for a fact that people weren’t capable of being satisfied with just one partner. And he certainly didn’t believe marriage represented love or devotion.
His mother’s behaviour had proved that to him over and over again, slowly destroying their family and his father in the process.
