“Assertiveness, and it’s about time I showed some, don’t you think?”
“Willfulness is more like it.”
“Well, I’m due some of that, too.” She grinned.
“And downright lippy.”
“So I’ve been told recently.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What’s responsible for this new sister I’ve come home to find?”
She shrugged. “I guess I’ve just figured out that I can make my own decisions about my life,andaccept the consequences for them.”
“Such as going off to England?” he asked carefully.
“For one.”
“There’s more?”
“I’m not getting married, Thomas,” she said so softly he assumed she referred to Malcolm.
“We know that, sweetheart, but—”
“Ever.”
Fireworks going off inside the room couldn’t have had more impact than that one word, especially when every instinct told him she wasn’t just being melodramatic, was in fact absolutely in earnest.
“Isn’t that…a bit drastic?”
“No,” she said simply.
“I see…no, actually I don’t. In fact, it looks like I’m as bad as Drew is at making assumptions. By the way, he’s terribly upset.”
She stood up, sensing by his tone that the conversation was going to take a turn now that she’d rather avoid for the time being. “Thomas—”
“He heard you crying last night.”
“Thomas, I don’t—”
“He insists your heart is broken. Is it, Georgie?”
He sounded so sympathetic, she felt the tears coming on again. She quickly gave him her back until she could get her emotions under control. Thomas, of course, had the patience to wait.
Finally she said in a forlorn little voice, “It feels like it.”
It wouldn’t have occurred to Thomas to ask his next question a few hours ago, but he was done with making assumptions. “Because of Malcolm?”
She swung around in surprise. She’d so hoped she wouldn’t have to say any more. But Thomas was being entirely too perceptive, not to mention persistent. She wondered why she was even trying to be misleading. What did it matter now? Because she didn’t want to talk about James. Talking about him would have her crying again, and she didn’t want to cry any more. Damn, but she’d thought last night’s bout would hold her for a while.
She dropped back on the bed with a sigh. “I really wish all I felt now was what I felt when I discovered Malcolm’s betrayal. That was so easy to deal with…and get over. I was merely furious.”
“So itissomething else that has you so melancholy?”
“Melancholy?” She laughed shortly. “How little that really says.” And then she asked a question of her own. “Why haven’t you married yet, Thomas?”
