Chapter Four #3
He arched a brow. ‘Us?’
She nodded.
‘I imagine we’ll face less opposition if we claim to be romantically involved,’ he said. ‘But I’m happy to go with your preference.’
She considered that. They could be honest, and tell them they were marrying to give the baby a stable home, so that they could both be fully in their child’s life. On some level, they might respect that.
Except her father wouldn’t.
He would have all the same objections Rosie had felt.
Marrying someone you couldn’t stand had the potential to be a disaster. He wouldn’t want that for Rosie. He’d never accept their wedding, and she couldn’t bear the thought of upsetting him.
‘You’re right,’ she said, her insides rolling at what they were agreeing to. ‘It’s going to be easier if we just pretend to be a couple around them.’
She flicked a glance to him, unknowing dread across her features.
‘You hate the thought of that,’ he murmured.
‘I’m not a good liar.’
‘Says the woman who was preparing to conceal a child’s parentage from her closest family.’
Heat flooded her cheeks.
‘A necessity.’ As was the little white lie she’d told her father about having a boyfriend, the night of Melina’s party. She’d wanted to avoid any possible risk of their parents finding out about what they’d done. It seemed like a moot point now.
‘As it turned out, it’s not.’
‘Yeah, well…’ Her voice tapered off as she realised they were getting drawn off course. ‘So, we’ll pretend, around them.’
‘And we will see them together as rarely as possible,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘That works.’
‘Fine. Would you prefer me to visit them alone first? To explain, and ask your father’s permission?’
She stared at him as though he’d suggested she start wearing shoes on her hands. ‘What?’
‘He seems traditional.’
She blanched. ‘No.’ Her dispute was swift.
‘For a start, you’re the last man on earth who would plausibly ask anyone for permission to do anything.
To say nothing of the fact I hate the whole concept of asking for permission to marry me.
I’m not some piece of property that can be traded from him to you.
’ She shuddered. ‘Secondly, we should tell them together. We’ll go there, act happy and… ’
‘In love,’ he prompted, eyes showing mockery.
‘Or whatever.’ She waved a hand in the air, mentally disparaging the concept of being in love—and particularly with this man. ‘Honestly, if you were to ask, I doubt he’d give you the answer you wanted, anyway.’
‘He doesn’t like me.’
‘He wouldn’t think you’re good enough for me,’ she said. ‘Then again, he probably wouldn’t think anyone was.’
‘I see. Because you’re such a catch?’
She refused to register the pain spiralling through her. Memories of his rejection, his friends’ cruel taunts, the way he’d stood there and listened to them without saying anything in her defence. She angled her face away, ignoring the hurt that was spreading over her like a wave.
‘We’ll tell them together,’ she said firmly. ‘We’ll do it quickly, then we’ll leave, and go back to pretending one another doesn’t exist.’
He didn’t respond, which she took to be his way of agreeing.
He had never known anyone who could drive him into a fit of fury as quickly as Rosemary Richardson.
She sparred with him in a way no one else would dare, and far from taking the high road and letting her spit and fume and get things off her chest, he flung himself right down into the mud-pit with her.
‘Because you’re such a catch?’
He’d been angry at her summation of Glen Richardson’s likely response to this ‘engagement’. Angry because, without knowing it, she’d pressed her fingers on a pain point he’d carried for a long time—a pain point he hated because it made him vulnerable and weak.
That he wasn’t good enough. That he wasn’t worth anything.
It didn’t matter how much he succeeded in life, the vulnerable teenager who’d learned the truth of his adoption and had his whole world shaken to its core was still a part of him, and when Rosemary hurled those insults at his feet she stirred that teenager back to life.
The truth was, objectively, Rosemary was, in fact, a catch. Beautiful, intelligent, interesting, well-read and well-travelled, the fact she wasn’t in a relationship was a testament to how her upbringing had affected her, rather than there being anything fundamentally undesirable about her.
The opposite was true.
He’d spent the entire flight working overtime to pretend he wasn’t noticing the way she gently flicked the ends of her hair, or toyed with her fingers, or crossed and uncrossed her legs, so he wanted to reach out and put his hand on her knee, curving it over her, holding her still.
Telling her it was going to be okay, even when he wasn’t sure that was true.
Because this whole thing was an unmitigated disaster, something he had spent his adult life assiduously avoiding: marriage, and children. Yet here he was, flying towards a future he would have said he didn’t want, with a woman he couldn’t stand.
And there was nothing either of them could do about it.