She didn’t want to believe it. How could she have been such a fool? How could she have forgotten the one truth that had defined her life since the day she was born—she would always be seen as a prize. Always.
His eyes narrowed, and she could see the muscle in his jaw start to tic. “You’ve got it all wrong. The bargain with your cousin has nothing to do with the way I feel about you. It might have started out as a means to free my brother and help my clan, but I fell in love with you along the way.”
“Isn’t that convenient? Of course you’d say that, your plan was to make me fall in love with you.” He took a step toward her, but again she flinched away. She didn’t want to listen to anything he had to say. Just looking at him hurt. The hard square jaw, the wide mouth, the gorgeous blue eyes that had once held the promise of a future set in the darkly handsome face. “My cousin chose well.” Too well. How easily she’d succumbed to his rugged masculinity. Flora felt her heart shatter at her feet like a dropped pane of glass. “God, how could you lie to me like that? How could you be so cruel?”
His face darkened. “I didn’t lie.”
“You didn’t tell me the truth, it’s the same thing.”
“I told you everything that matters. My feelings for you are the truth; the bargain with your cousin does not change that.”
“But the two are inexorably tied together. How could I possibly believe anything you say?”
He gripped her arm, not letting go when she tried to wrench away. “Listen to me,” he said in a low voice. “I needed your cousin’s help. I did what I had to do for my brother and my clan. But that does not change how I feel about you or how you feel about me.”
It changed everything. Lachlan had used her. Manipulated her in the worst way and made her love him. She’d been his pawn and nothing more. Even after he must have realized how much he would hurt her, he hadn’t told her the truth. “You could have told me.”
“I wasn’t sure you would listen.” She heard the censure in his voice, but nothing he could say would change the fact that he’d used her. “Would you have agreed to marry me if I had?” he challenged.
“I guess we’ll never know, since you never gave me the chance to decide.”
“I always intended to tell you the truth.”
“When it was too late for me to change my mind?”
“I couldn’t take the chance that you would.” He gave her a long, penetrating look. “I know how you feel about arranged marriages, and I didn’t want to lose you.”
She laughed, a sharp sound bereft of humor. “How unfortunate that your plan didn’t quite work out.”
“But it did,” he said quietly.
“You’re an even bigger fool than I am if you think I will marry you now.”
She didn’t like his expression. It made her feel he knew something she didn’t. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he said with a note of warning. “We can go through with the ceremony—”
“No! I won’t marry you.”
His mouth tightened. “It’s too late.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The ceremony hasn’t even begun.”
“The ceremony isn’t necessary.”
Flora felt a prickle of alarm. “What do you mean?”
He took a deep breath. “The contracts have been signed, and last night we agreed to marry.”
She blanched. His strange pronouncement of their intention to marry before her cousin and brother suddenly became clear. “You tricked me,” she whispered, though why she was surprised, she didn’t know. Hadn’t he done so from the start? Her next thought cut her to the quick. Raw emotion tore at her throat, making her voice ragged and tight. “Is that why you came to me last night?” Not to make love, but to consummate their agreement. Consummation following their words of intent to marry would be all he needed to make a valid claim of marriage.
“I would have come to you anyway.”
“Yes, but this time there was another purpose.” She could feel the pain erupting in her chest. “Wasn’t there?”
“I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but I could take no chances in case Rory tried to put a stop to the wedding. I did it for your protection as much as mine.”
Flora made a sharp sound of disbelief. “My protection? You can’t really expect me to believe that.”
