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“Does anyone know?”
Her forehead creases. “Are you asking if my sister knows that I’m pregnant with your baby?” she asks. “The answer is no. I never told anyone about that night. It wasn’t one of my finest moments.”
It’s a shame she feels that way. It was one of mine.
“You’ve asked me a lot of questions, so I think I deserve to ask one of my own,” she adds.
I grimace. Out in the garden, I hear the distinctive clink of crystal as someone calls for attention to begin the toasts. Everything is happening too fucking fast. I need the world to freeze in place so I can figure out what the hell I’m going to do about this unforeseen development.
“You said that you met Celine after me?”
She thinks I’m lying about that?If I’d known who she was when I almost ran over her that night, it would have saved us both all this damn drama. “That’s right.”
“How long after?”
Her posture is all righteous indignation, but the question comes out sounding meek and vulnerable. She seems to realize the same thing almost as soon as she says it, because she shifts her weight back on her strappy black heels and crosses her arms over her chest in an attempt to overcompensate.
It does me no favors. Her dress is so tight in all the right places.
Completely wrong for this occasion. Completely wrong for me. Completely tempting nonetheless.
“Not long after,” I say vaguely.
“I want a number. Specifics.”
“Why?” I ask in exasperation. “What does this have to do with anything?”
“I just need to know, okay?” She glances around to check if we’ve been noticed. “Tell me.”
“Two weeks, give or take. Does that satisfy you, princess?”
She bites her lip and pivots to the side so that I can only see her profile. She looks like she’s trying to work through a math problem in her head.
“I’ve got another question,” she blurts, twisting around so that we’re face to face again. “Why are you marrying my sister?”
That one catches me off-guard. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a sideways declaration of her feelings or if she’s trying to suss out my motives. Either way, the answer isn’t easy.
That is, thetrueanswer isn’t easy.
Not that I’m about to give her the truth.
“I love your sister.”
She stares at my blank face with scrutiny. “You love my sister,” she repeats. “What do you love about her?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m sorry—I just find it hard to believe that you can go from meeting her, to loving her, and then proposing to her in a matter of weeks. Especially considering you slept with me the week before.”
“What did you think?” I drawl. “That you had ruined other women for me?”
She flushes scarlet. “No, that’s not—shit, I just don’t want my sister marrying some rich, pompous playboy who’s going to stop caring about her the moment he finagles a ring on her finger.”
“And you’ve jumped to that conclusion because…?”
“Because you don’t strike me as the kind of man who makes hasty decisions.” She blushes and clarifies, “Well, mostly not hasty. Not when it comes to romance, at least. Which means you have an ulterior motive in marrying Celine, and it’s not love.”
I didn’t expect that. Sherlock Holmes in a little black dress. It’s inconvenient that I know exactly what that body looks and feels like as it comes undone beneath my touch.
