“It’s only a two-hour flight to Italy. I’ll just head there.”
“You came here for me,” he said, his voice rougher than intended.
She wanted him.
God knew he wanted her.
He was trying. Trying to make the right choice, and where Heather was concerned he had a low success rate with that. He wanted her to want him, even as he wanted some distance and sanity where she was concerned.
A small smile curved the corner of her lips. “No. Of course not. I just came here to talk about our friendship. I’m glad that I did. I’m glad that we are on the same page.”
He knew that she was lying. But of course he was going to allow her to have the lie.
“I’ll see you in Vienna. For the wedding.”
“I have a dress.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it.”
Need flooded his veins. She looked away from him, and her red hair slid over her shoulder, catching the lamplight, gold playing over the top of the fiery strands. He wanted to touch them. Wanted to touch her. He wouldn’t let himself.
He had never been one for exercising discipline when it came to Heather. But he did it in so many other areas of his life. He hadn’t become as successful as he was without it. He worked day and night, he catered to his mother, he had brief, satisfying relationships with women who knew that he was never going to get emotionally invested. Because he didn’t have any more to give. He was going to have to find more for his child.
There could never be anything else. He needed something that he could draw more from, not something that would take from him. And truthfully, the relationship with Heather filled the well inside of him in ways that nothing else had.
He needed her. Needed her by his side more than he needed her underneath. He was simply going to have to remember that.
“After the wedding we could start talking about the nursery. Find out whether the baby is a boy or a girl. That will be nice.”
“It will be.”
She gave him a smile before she walked out of the room, out of the town house, and he paced over to the bar, grabbing a bottle of Scotch and pouring himself a measure of it. Then he walked up to the wall and smashed his elbow right through the Sheetrock. The pain was searing, and he looked at the white shirt he was wearing and saw that it was red with blood.
He let it run.
There was pain now. So that there could be peace later.
He was standing solid in that.
She had been mildly devastated by the conversation they’d had at the London house. She hadn’t expected it. Yes, she had found it disquieting that he had suggested she leave, but she hadn’t put a lot of extra thought into it. She had hoped that it was actually a good-faith gesture, which was how he had presented it. That he trusted her, so she could go and be in New York for a while if it suited her.
She hadn’t expected for him to cut her off entirely. For their sexual relationship to end just like that.
Logically though, she had been thinking that they would end it at least for a while when they got married, until they got their footing and then…
She had known that they would never be able to resist each other, so obviously they would end up back in bed and then maybe he… Maybe he would begin to feel the same way that she did.
Her chest was sore. But she looked amazing. She had bought the most beautiful wedding dress that she had ever seen. A sweetheart neckline with crystals all over. It was short underneath, with a sheer overlay, glimmering with all of those glass beads. Her legs were visible when the light hit it just right.
And she had the most risqué bustier that she could find beneath it, along with a pair of panties that might as well not even be there for all that they were as substantial as cobwebs.
But that felt like where they were heading. It had been her fantasy, of a wedding night, of the way that things could be between them, and he had decisively ended it. She couldn’t even argue with what he had said.
It was impossible to argue with. They were getting married because she was pregnant. Not because they wanted each other.
She stood there, looking at her reflection in the mirror for a long moment.
It had been four days since she had last seen him, and now it was the wedding day.
