Chapter Ten #2
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 in his home and his care and his bed 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.
‘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 was already missing 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 mean more to 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.’