Tabby winced at the fierce grip of his strong hands and he released her crushed fingers immediately. ‘Ineed love. I’m happy for you that you don’t care about that but I do care about it. I will only marry a man who loves me and whom I love. It’s the one thing I can’t compromise on. I don’t think a marriage that isn’t built on love would survive the years. Love keeps you loyal to your partner even when that partner is annoying you. Relationships wax and wane and go through rough patches,’ she argued. ‘But what keeps a couple together is love.’
Aristide shrugged a broad shoulder, his lean, darkly handsome face stony. ‘I don’t agree with that. You’re getting all emotional and this isn’t what this is about. Marriage is primarily a legal agreement—’
‘I don’t agree with that either. I will only marry a guy who can tell me he loves me…and be proud of the fact,’ Tabby retorted chokily, her throat convulsing. ‘But you’re never going to do that. You’re still too bitter about Imogen—’
‘I am not… Why the hell are you bringingherinto this?’ Aristide demanded with sudden anger.
‘Because she’s right there square in the middle of it whether you like it or not. I’m not saying that I believe you’re still hung up on her but I do think that your attitude is all wrong because of your experience with her. I also won’t be punished, with your lack of faith in me or in love, for her mistakes either. I deserve better. Thanks for the proposal, Aristide, but no, thanks.’
‘Tabby…’ he breathed rawly, hands hanging fisted by his sides.
Tabby spun back to him. ‘And don’t think I don’t know that you’re only thinking of marriage because I’m pregnant,’ she condemned. ‘It wouldn’t even have occurred to you otherwise. And that’s humiliating, Aristide. Maybe I’ll never meet anyone who loves me or wants to marry me, but I need to stay free to give life a chance. If I married you I’d be closing myself off to the possibility of being loved by someone else, someone who is less of a perfectionist than you and who can care about me, flaws and all!’
As she stalked away in high dudgeon, wondering if she had dealt as poorly with him as she possibly could or whether she should have reacted differently, she suppressed her increasing emotional turmoil. Right, she reminded herself, it’s time to pack. If he couldn’t give her even a faint prospect of love, she didn’t want him, she told herself firmly. Such a marriage would end in tears.
He might fall for someone else. And she truly did not fancy figuring as the loving wife of a male who did not love her back, who would always refuse to let the more tender emotions have space inside him. It would be like downsizing herself, reducing her to the level of a beggar seeking crumbs from the table. She would end up hating herself if she married a man who didn’t love her.
Aristide was in shock. He had been toying with the option of marrying Tabby almost from the first moment he’d learned that she was pregnant. It had lurked in the back of his mind ever since. Of course, he hadn’t told her that and it had never crossed his mind that a proposal in such circumstances could be seen as humiliating. He had been more afraid of recklessly talking himself into a sudden disastrous marriage that had no prospect of success. And then he had got to know Tabby properly and appreciate her and, no, he was not always looking at her and seeing flaws. Where had she got that idea from? In fact he thought she was pretty much perfect, which would no doubt surprise her.
But instead of proposing marriage at the start, or at least making his intentions clear, he had instead conned her into a fake engagement and done himself no favours, he registered belatedly. And, of course, that had been a total con on his part, knowing how attractive he still found her, knowing how much he wanted her inhishome andhiscare andhisbed and away from other men. In truth he was very possessive of her and the thought of having to let her go away from him and back into the wider world downright appalled him.
Not only had he let that fake-engagement business get in the way, but he had also let Imogen get in the way. He should’ve shared that story with Tabby much sooner. He had even let a desire to be cool and real get in the way! So, you propose on a walk along the beach on her very last day! Couldn’t you have done better than that, Aristide? Waiting until the eleventh hour and going with casual had been a major miscalculation.
He breathed in deep and swallowed back his disordered emotions with difficulty. He had royally screwed up, although he was still trying to work out how a proposal of marriage could be humiliating, offensive and too little too late. And she was upset, deeply upset. She had gone pale and there had been a bleak look in her eyes he had never seen there before.
‘At least come home with me tonight,’ Aristide urged as his limo swept away from the airport.
It was a dreary wet night and she was back in London. She had been surprised when Aristide had announced that he was flying to the UK with her.
‘I need to get back to work too,’ he had told her.
‘Why would I come home with you now?’ she asked him baldly.
‘You’re returning to an unheated apartment that contains no food. It would be easier for you to return to my place instead.’
‘There’s a twenty-four-hour supermarket within a mile of my place. I’ll manage…but thanks for offering,’ Tabby told him, striving to be gracious even in the face of adversity. And it was definitely adversity when you turned down a marriage proposal and the guy just went on being charming and considerate. If he’d brooded, acted short-tempered or ignored her, at least she could have convinced herself that he or his ego had been damaged by her rejection.
She eased her gorgeous engagement ring slowly off her finger. Her fingers had swelled in the heat so it wasn’t that easy an operation and when it was finally free, she extended it to him.
‘I don’t want it back. I bought it for you.’
‘Stop being difficult!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m tired, I’m hungry and on a short fuse.’
‘Then why don’t you come home with me?’
‘Will you please stop being nice?’ Tabby launched at him furiously. ‘It’s only making this more difficult!’
Aristide studied her flushed and mutinous face with concealed amusement laced with concern. He wanted to gather her into his arms and soothe her. Hangry was a word that had been invented for Tabby when she was tired and hungry.
‘And please take the ring…’ she begged, still holding it out to him.
He dropped it into a pocket. ‘I don’t want it.’
‘Well, sell it, then,’ Tabby muttered, aware that she was behaving badly and embarrassed that she couldn’t control her heaving emotions just then. She didn’t want him to sell her ring because she adored it, but it wasn’t hers to keep and she wasn’t mercenary. ‘I’m sorry I left the box on the island.’
She climbed out of the limousine and went to open the door but he stole the key from her hand and opened it for her while his security men saw to her luggage, hauling it upstairs. Aristide moved ahead of her, switching on lights, and the emptiness of the rooms engulfed her along with a bone-deep sense of loneliness. More than anything she just needed to phone her sister and admit her misery and when feeling as low as this, she consoled herself, she could only go up.
Aristide looked frustrated, glorious dark golden eyes troubled, and guilt almost got her by the throat. For the first time she saw that he wasn’t much happier than she was and he was showing it. Just last night she had been in his arms and as close to him as any two human beings could be and now that seemed like a far-off daydream.
