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She put her drink down and stood, that expression of determination back. “That’s unfortunate, because I won’t marry you if I’m not sure we can satisfy one another in the bedroom. You’ll have to find another way to redeem your family’s honor.”
She turned to leave, and he was so shocked by her words that he let her get all the way to the door before he barked out an order for her to stop.
She faced him and waited by the door.
“You can’t be serious, Phoebe.”
“I am.” And, damn it, she looked it.
“Surely after that kiss in your apartment you cannot doubt we share a suitable rapport?” Damn it. He sounded like a politician, not a man hot to share her bed. And he was. Very hot.
She winced, and he figured she agreed. “That was very one-sided.”
“I was more turned on than I have ever been,” he admitted, refusing to hide behind euphemisms any longer.
“Yet you found it so easy to dismiss the encounter as meaningless.”
“You were promised to my brother.”
“So you pretended something profound had meant nothing?”
“Yes.” If she wanted the truth, he would give it to her.
“You lied to me?”
“Yes.” And he was not proud of that fact.
“Your lie hurt me.”
“I am sorry.”
She shrugged, as if his apology meant nothing, and that stung.
“You do not believe I am sincere?”
“I believe you put more importance on family honor than on not hurting people who are supposed to matter to you. You hurt me. You hurt Dimitri. If you had been Dimitri you would have married me and left the mother of your child in the cold.”
“I would not have gotten another woman pregnant,” he said through gritted teeth.
Phoebe looked at him for several seconds of silence. “I believe you.”
“Then believe me when I say that we are in perfect accord physically.” He was still reeling from her accusations of hurting the people he cared about, but he could not allow himself to get sidetracked from their initial discussion.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean that this is not a negotiable point.”
“It should not be a point at all. You already know the answer—there is no need for further testing.”
“So you say.”
“Yes.” And his word should be good enough. Besides, she had been there. The true surprise was that she had believed his denial of how powerful it had been.
But she had believed, and she had been hurt—and there was only one way to make up for that. If she would let him.
“How can I know you are telling me the truth now?” she asked, proving her mind was traveling along the same path.
