‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Aristide announced.
‘But I’ll be working—’
‘No, you won’t be,’ Aristide contradicted. ‘Violet was unable to find a replacement for you willing to take on the contract for less than a month, so you still have two weeks to fill…unless, of course, you want to break the contract and pay the costs.’
Tabby gritted her teeth. She hadn’t known that her replacement was in the bakery to work a full month and she had no intention of taking any action that could damage her sister’s business or add needlessly to her costs. Slowly she nodded, wishing that just once Aristide didn’t know better than she did. ‘Goodnight,’ she said tightly.
‘Tomorrow morning, I’ll send the car to pick you up at eight,’ he specified. ‘We’ll have breakfast together and we can talk.’
‘We’ve got nothing left to talk about.’
‘I’ll talk. You can listen and pronounce judgement,’ Aristide traded lazily.
Tabby resisted the temptation to tell him that she wasn’t a judgemental person, because it would have been a lie where Aristide was concerned. She watched every move Aristide made, tried to read his every expression and was forever judging him and making assumptions. Now she was learning that, just as often as she was right, she often got him wrong. The shock of the marriage proposal she had refused was still reverberating through her.
She ordered food from a local takeaway place and ate before falling into bed, exhausted and miserable because it was very bad news that she wasalreadymissing Aristide.
What on earth did he think they still had to talk about? The very prospect of that dialogue made her anxious because she didn’t want to argue with him again. What did she have to say to a male who believed that love was not required in marriage?
She was collected on the dot of eight and driven through the heavy morning traffic to Aristide’s apartment. In spite of everything that had happened between them, the anticipation of seeing him again made her heartbeat quicken and released butterflies in her tummy. She breathed in deep as she crossed the threshold.
Aristide was elegantly dressed in a dark business suit. His lean dark face was taut and a touch remote. But he was still so hot he positively sizzled with lethally sexy vibes. His expression reminded her very much of their first meeting at her former place of employment and she shrank a little into herself, asking herself what else she could’ve expected, other than distance, after turning down his proposal. She doffed her coat, passed it to his hovering manservant, and took a seat at the table.
‘I’m going to do most of the talking,’ Aristide warned her in advance. ‘Try not to interrupt me until I’m finished. I get one chance at this and one chance only. I don’t want to screw it up.’
Slightly dazed by that unexpected speech, Tabby nodded and reached daringly for a croissant as her tea was poured for her. ‘You’re making me nervous,’ she whispered, the atmosphere so tense that her stiff shoulders already ached.
As the door closed behind his staff, Aristide released his breath in a pent-up hiss. ‘I grew up in a very dysfunctional household. Women floated in and floated out again. I often had no idea whether the same woman would still be there on my next visit and there were often frightening arguments and distressing scenes between my father and his partners. All of that made me decide that I would ideally settle down and marry one woman and stay with her for ever…’
‘Understandable,’ Tabby chipped in and then flushed, for she remembered him saying that she was to let him speak.
‘I never planned on being a playboy. Imogen did that to me. I didn’t trust women any more. I protected myself to the extent that, when I met you, I was as tempted by you as I was by the conviction that I should turn away and walk fast in the opposite direction…because the moment I met you I knew that you would meanmoreto me in every way. And that scared me, made me feel out of control. But I couldn’t resist you…’
Tabby unfroze and glanced up, her anxious eyes warming with acceptance of that admission. ‘The same,’ she echoed, feeling that identical irresistible pull tug at her afresh.
A sudden slashing grin stole the gravity from Aristide’s lean darkly handsome features. ‘I just can’t shut you up, can I?’
‘Probably not,’ she agreed, her cheeks burning.
‘I told myself that it was only one night, but even over dinner that first evening I was toying with the idea of spending the whole weekend with you, which was groundbreaking for me.’
Tabby sipped her tea, wondering where he was heading in his journey back to the start of their relationship. It was definitely heartening to learn that long before they’d reached the bedroom he had already been interested in spending more time with her. ‘And then the contraceptive misunderstanding occurred and it all went horribly wrong,’ she said for him, because that subject had already been done to death and she had long understood why he had reacted the way he had that night.
‘That night, if you hadn’t given me the impression that you were cheating on your fiancé, I would’ve been in touch and apologising for my loss of temper by the next day. That’s how keen I was on you,’ he volunteered, disconcerting her.
‘So you waited…’
‘Had you investigated—’
‘Came to check me out,’ she filled in. ‘And I told you that I was pregnant without meaning to tell you.’
‘When I suggested we fake our engagement, I was already thinking of marriage. I never planned to let you go. I was deceiving you.’
‘And you’re admitting that?’ Her eyes were wide with surprise and a certain amount of satisfaction because the idea of marrying her had been in his head long before he had actually got around to proposing.
‘I’m a talented negotiator.’ Aristide snatched in a deep, audible breath. ‘I was so busy plotting how to catch and keep you, I didn’t consider how my…er…unconventional courtship would look to you.’
Tabby startled both of them by bursting out laughing. ‘Unconventionalcourtship?Yes, that’s a term and a half!’
