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He laughed, then, apparently finding the question ridiculous. ‘I do not ask to inspect their bank statements at the door to my bedroom.’
Her cheeks flushed. ‘I just mean someone normal.’
‘I know what you mean, yet I do not understand why you’re asking me this now.’
She forced a smile to her face. ‘I’m just trying to understand you, that’s all.’
He picked up the paper again, flicking a page abruptly. ‘I do not find it easy to trust. Marina taught me well,’ he said finally. ‘I do not want to sleep with women who might have ulterior motives.’
She sucked in an indignant breath, shocked to imagine him ever thinking that of her. ‘Just the ones you’re using for sex?’ she snapped back.
His confusion was obvious. ‘Why are you so angry about this? I have casual sex with women, and yes, generally they’re moneyed. So what? What does it matter?’
‘It matters,’ she said finally.
‘Fine.’ He closed the paper again. ‘If you want to discuss our sex lives, let’s come back to yours. You exercise no judgement in the men you take to your bed. Is that any better than my approach?’
Fury whipped through her. She scraped her chair back and glared at him—but, damn it, the tears that had been stinging her eyes for days fell from her lashes.
He narrowed his gaze, his expression shifting.
He swore darkly in his own language, staring at Tilly as she battled tears, and felt like a first-class moron.
She had been looking for reassurance that she was special, and instead he’d made her feel like the last in a long line of wealthy lovers. And then he’d basically called her a tart into the mix.
‘How dare you?’
She was so beautiful, even when tears were staining her cheeks, sending little wobbles of moisture down her face. She dashed them away, and her chest heaved with the effort of breathing.
‘You are not like the women I’ve been with. I have told you this. Money, background—none of this matters to me with you. It is you I have fallen in love with, Cressida. You. Cressida Wyndham. The last woman on earth I would have thought I had anything in common with, and you have dug your way into my heart.’
She sobbed again, her tears falling faster now.
He couldn’t understand it. ‘Please, do not cry,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t want to argue.’
She sniffed, but nodded.
The future she had held such hopes for was looking almost impossible to grab.
He turned his attention back to the paper and pretended to read. Something was worrying her. Something he didn’t understand and certainly couldn’t help her with unless she chose to speak to him. She was on edge—like a cat on hot tin.
He turned the page again—and froze as his beautiful lover appeared before him, her head bent, dark sunglasses covering her eyes, and her hand held by a man with scruffy blond hair and a ring through his nose.
‘Would you care to tell me how you can be in two places at once?’ he heard himself ask, the question calm despite the volcanic lava hammering him from the inside out.
Across the table, Tilly froze too. Her eyes met his with a tangle of confusion and then slowly dropped to the newspaper.
Even upside down she could read the headline.
HEIRESS WEDS LOVER!
SECRET CEREMONY!
DETAILS HERE!
Her stomach swooped and she gripped the table for strength.
Her eyes were enormous in her face as he lifted the page and she skimmed the first bold paragraph.
