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“Oh,” she chuckled. “Believe me, they fought.”
“How do you know?”
“You say they were happy?”
He nodded, once. “Very.”
“So then they fought, but behind closed doors, which is how it should be, as much as possible.”
He considered that. “How do you know then that Bronte and Ashton never argued? Perhaps they just refrained from doing so around family.”
“Maybe,” she pursed her lips in a gesture that reminded him squarely of Bronte. “But no, I don’t think so. You get a feeling about a couple and they were as dull as three-day-old bread.”
A smile curled his lips. “I can imagine that.”
“Mmm.” The noise was heavy with disapproval. “There was no chemistry. No spark. No oomph. Now with you and Bronte, that makes more sense.”
He felt the ground grow uneven beneath him. The lie they were telling hadn’t bothered him until that moment. It was a fiction invented so Bronte could save face; it hadn’t occurred to him that he’d be telling a bald-faced lie to a lovely woman’s face. Yet here he was, nodding, complicit in the mistruth. But his eyes chased Bronte and he felt calm again – because it was worth it. All of this, for Bronte, was worth it.
“I’m glad you approve,” was all he could say. Then, because he knew Bronte would need to backpedal from this eventually, he turned to Clara. “Though as you say, Bronte has been hurt, her heart broken. My greatest concern is that she not be hurt again, and not by me.” Clara didn’t respond. “We aren’t rushing into anything.”
Another noise, a contemplative sound, and then, “Aren’t you?”
An hour later and Clara’s question still throbbed in his brain. He couldn’t say why. Only that her supposition that they were a good couple, well-matched, and that they were rushing into things, all sat heavily around his shoulders. It wasn’t the lie, so much as the truth in her observation, that gave him pause for thought. They knew this was temporary, but was that really any protection against hurt? Wasn’t it possible that Bronte could still develop feelings for him even in a short amount of time? The more he thought about it, the more a sense of panic enveloped him. Clara had said Bronte would always love with all her heart, and he could tell that was true. It was obvious. Everything about her made that capacity apparent. So if she loved him? He immediately resisted that idea – and the nausea it brought with him. Hurting Bronte would be just about the worst thing he’d ever done. He wouldn’t allow it to come to pass. He needed to make sure she understood his limitations, that was all. He could control this – he could make sure she never forgot that this was just a weekend fling and would never – could never – be anything else.
“You must be exhausted.” His voice was deep and melodious, and through the fog of champagne and happiness, it reached all the way inside Bronte, soothing her so she smiled without realising it.
“Must I be?” She lifted her face to his and her heart fluttered. “I guess, a little.”
“You’ve hardly stopped for two days.”
“Hardly slept either,” she pointed out with a wink, enjoying the way his eyes showed an instant flash of recognition.
“That’s true.” He lifted a finger to her cheek, stroking it slowly, so she held her breath because in that moment, it felt like the only thing she could do. He was quiet, as though thinking, or trying to work out how to say something, and the longer she waited the more her breath burned in her lungs, but she was powerless to exhale.
“Do you need to stick around tomorrow?”
The question wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting.
“No.”
A muscle jerked low in his jaw. “So we can leave after breakfast?”
“Oh.” Her insides squished. Something like acid burned the back of her throat. “Yes, of course. You must be keen to get back.”
She looked away from him, desperate to hide the effect his words had on her. This was all just pretend. A game. And Luca must have been counting the minutes until he could resume his normal life.
She felt, rather than heard, his exhalation of breath.
“We came for the wedding.”
She nodded quickly. “And the wedding’s almost over.”
“I’ve had fun with you this weekend.”
Her heart lifted. “Me too.”
She felt his hesitation again, as though weighing up his words carefully. “I think you’re an incredible woman, Bronte.”
