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The memory of her in my arms, warm and soft and relaxed, rose to the surface, making me want to pull her back into them again. But I didn’t move. Distance was crucial, otherwise this whole plan wouldn’t work.
‘I’ll eat when I’m ready,’ she said firmly. ‘Tell me why you’re not marrying Olivia and does she know?’
‘I’m not marrying her because you’re pregnant and she isn’t. And, yes, she does know.’ Technically, that wasn’t correct, but seeing as how she was with Valentin I could safely assume she wouldn’t want to marry me now anyway.
You should tell Jenny the truth. Tell her Valentin is back and that he took Olivia. Tell her that she’s all you ever wanted, that marrying her would be your greatest joy.
But I couldn’t tell her those things. Valentin’s return was a separate issue that I didn’t want to get into right now, and marrying Jenny wouldn’t be my greatest joy. It would be my greatest torment. Because while she’d be my wife, she would never be mine. I couldn’t allow it. The possessive part of my nature—the part of me that was my father through and through—would be too strong to deny and I couldn’t expose her to that. I wouldn’t.
‘You don’t have to marry me because I’m pregnant,’ Jenny snapped. ‘This isn’t Victorian England, you know.’
I ignored her tone. ‘One of the conditions for me marrying Olivia was that she would provide me with heirs.’
‘I see.’ Jenny’s dark eyes were sharp. She looked like a small, round blackbird, eyeing me with disfavour. ‘And if someone else happens to get pregnant? What then? Would you get rid of me as easily as you got rid of her?’
You are hurting her. You know how she feels about you.
And she would hate being anyone’s second choice, especially given all the lies Catherine had drummed into her about herself. And they were lies. Catherine was a career gold-digger and, while I could understand what had driven her to it, I had never understood her desire to mould her daughter into her own image.
Jenny didn’t have that hard, mercenary edge. She was softer, warmer. She trusted too easily and she gave her heart too readily. After all, she’d given it to me, the worst person in the world for her.
‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘No one else will get pregnant because I am not sleeping with anyone else.’
She blinked, her pretty mouth opening in surprise. ‘So...what? You’ll be sleeping with me?’
A thread of raw heat wound through me, making everything inside me tighten.Dios, I would love to sleep with her, her warm, lush little body pressed against mine. I could have her whenever and however I wanted her, sink inside her welcoming heat...
But I couldn’t allow it.
‘No. That is not the kind of marriage I’m offering you.’
‘Then what kind of marriage are you offering me?’
‘It will be one in name only.’
Her dark eyes went wide. ‘What? Why?’
I steeled myself against her surprise. The beast in me wanted to tell her that I was mistaken, that it would be a full marriage in every way there was. But I couldn’t.
Instead, I said, ‘Because the purpose of sex would be to conceive, and you are already pregnant.’
‘But I—’
‘That is the kind of marriage I was going to have with Olivia, and I will not change it just for you.’
Disappointment crossed her lovely face, although she tried to hide it, and I could feel it tug at me too.
It was not what I wanted. Yet it was necessary.
‘Eat your food,’ I said curtly. ‘You’ve had nothing since last night and you’re looking extremely pale.’
The disappointment had ebbed from her dark brown eyes, but little sparks still gleamed there, signs of her stubborn spirit. A reminder that while Jenny Grey might look small and soft and vulnerable, she wasn’t as defenceless as she seemed.
I still remembered the day my father had stormed into my study while she’d been curled up in her customary seat. I’d instantly known that he was in one of his cold, cruel moods and had tried to order her out of the room. When he’d been like that, anyone and anything had been a target, so I’d tried to make sure that the only target he found was me. I was as cold as he was, and I could take anything he threw at me.
Yet before I’d been able to speak Jenny had slipped off the chair and reached for my father’s hand, taking it in hers and pulling on it. ‘Mummy says you’ll take me for a walk in the garden, Stepfather. Please? I love going for walks with you.’
I’d braced myself to leap over my desk, put myself between her and him, save her from whatever he was about to do. Yet before I’d been able to move, instead of raising his hand to strike her, or utter some casually cruel remark, he’d stared at her with distaste. Then he’d shaken off her hand and, without a word, turned and walked away.
