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“Of course I love him!”
Reese just looked at her.
“I do!” she insisted. “And we’re—we’refriends,Reese, if you can understand that. We laugh together and talk together and understand each other, and I’m comfortable with him—”
“Oh, and I make you uncomfortable?” he shot at her.
“Yes! Just having this conversation makes me uncomfortable! Knowing youwantsomething from me makes me uncomfortable! I can’tgiveyou that, Reese! I can feel you pleading with me even when you don’t say a word, and itweighson me. I’m going to marry Tivol, and that’s not going to change just because you—” She tightened her lips over the next impossible words.
But he spoke them anyway. “Because I love you?”
She turned her eyes away. “Because you think you do.”
“Because you love me?” he said softly.
She shook her head, still not looking at him.I don’t,she wanted to tell him.I don’t I don’t I don’t.Instead she said, “I’m going to marry Tivol.”
There was a moment of silence. “But not yet.”
Now she sighed and looked back at him. “Reese.”
“Not for another two years, is that right?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“It means you’re notsure.”
“It means I have a lot of planning to do and Tivol is in no particular hurry.”
“It means anything can happen,” Reese said. “Two years is practically a lifetime.”
“It might feel that way sometimes,” she retorted. “Certainly this conversation seems to have lasted for hours.”
He surprised her by laughing. “Only because you’re savoring every word.”
She made a sound of choked fury, and Reese laughed even harder. “I think your arrogance is even worse than your importunities!” she exclaimed. “But at least it helps me to stop feeling sorry for you!”
“Well, I don’t want your pity, so I suppose I’ll have to flaunt my arrogance more often,” he said cheerfully.
“Certainly! That will make you welcome at even more households than mine.”
A light voice at the door caused them both to spin in that direction. “What? Reese Curval in town and winning friends everywhere with his mockery and arrogance? I am shocked at such an unlikely occurrence.”
“Tivol!” Madeleine exclaimed, hurrying over with outstretched hands. “How good of you to arrive just in time to keep me from quarreling with Reese.”
He enveloped her hands in his and smiled at her with his usual lazy charm. “The only way to keep from quarreling with Reese is to deny him entrance to the house,” he said. “I thought you knew that by now.”
“And yet somehow I forget until he shows up again.”
Reese strolled toward the door, his face showing no discomfiture at the interruption—not anger, not remorse, not thwarted passion. For her part, Madeleine was struggling to contain her own emotions. Embarrassment. Dismay at what Tivol might have overheard. Guilt that she had allowed Reese to say such things at all.
And the tiniest bit of disappointment that the conversation with Reese bad been terminated so abruptly. Of course, there was nothing else he could possibly have to say to her, no other answer she could have given him. She should be glad he was leaving without a chance to renew his appeals.
“I enjoyed the chance to catch up this afternoon, Maddie,” he said as he reached the door. Ever so slightly he emphasized the pet name that no one else used any more, now that her brother and mother were dead. “I hope we run into each other again soon.”
Tivol’s voice was casual, but he still kept Madeleine’s hands in his, which she couldn’t help thinking was a deliberate show of possessiveness. “How long are you planning to stay in town?”
Reese’s voice was pleasant as well. “Only another day or two but, as I was telling Madeleine, I’ll be back soon on business for my father.”
