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“And by extension, your reputation?”
She waited, her breath held. He said nothing.
“Why did you come to the event this evening?”
“Was there something wrong with that, Elon? As your wife, shouldn’t I attend such things?”
“You are not yet my wife.”
Her eyes narrowed. A familiar feeling of rejection washed over her. She dug her fingernails into her palms. “So I shouldn’t have come?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What are you trying to say then?”
“I was surprised.”
“You wouldn’t have been if you’d allowed me to accompany you on the tour of the Children’s hospital, this morning.”
She saw from his reaction that her guess was right – he’d prevented that from taking place.
“What’s the matter, Elon? Are you ashamed of me? Because if you are, then please forget about all of this. You don’t have to marry me. I’ll happily go back to Mosar right now and forget this ever happened.”
“Damn it,” he raised his voice then shook his head in a visible attempt to smooth his temper. “Stop putting words into my mouth. I am not ashamed of you – I was very proud of you tonight. I was in awe, if I’m honest, of the way you worked the room.”
Warmth spread through her at the compliment; she fought to ignore it. It wasn’t enough.
“But?”
“But I was not prepared to see you.”
She frowned. “So? For that reason you’ve frogmarched me through your home as though I’ve set the flag on fire or something?”
He blanched. “I did no such thing.”
“You threatened to hoist me over your shoulder if I didn’t come with you. All night you’ve been staring at me as though I was giving you deep personal offense. Why, Elon?”
“If you think that’s why I was staring at you then you know nothing about men.”
“Haven’t we already covered that?”
His eyes flared wide and then he moved towards her, not touching her, but not leaving any space between them either. She could feel the war being raged within him, a battle between his wants and needs, and his desire to ignore both.
“So why were you staring at me then?” She goaded, knowing she was playing with fire and no longer caring about the resultant burns.
“Because I couldn’t look away,” he muttered, as though it was a criticism. “Because you look like – ,”
She waited, her breath held. He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head. “You look like some kind of angel, and you speak as though you’ve been doing this sort of thing all your life. Because you are beautiful and smart and because I was completely blown away by you.” His expression darkened. “Because every man in that room tonight was similarly impressed by you, and all I could think about was dragging you out of there to prove to them that you’re mine. All mine.”
She gasped, his jealousy shocking her and pleasing her in equal measure. Ashamed of that, she shook her head, knowing she should reject his possessive response. “You can’t keep me locked up from every other male for the rest of my life.”
“Would you like to make a bet?”
She took a step backwards, but he was already shaking his head. “I don’t mean that.”
“Don’t you?”
“On some level, I probably do,” he said, a tight smile lacking humour. “But intellectually, I know you must join me, stand by my side, be seen and appreciated by all you meet, even if the idea of that makes me want to snap something.”
