She lowered her hands to her lap so damned calmly that it scraped at him all the more. Then she cocked her head towards him.
‘Why do you care?’
Lukas didn’t answer. Words would have been impossible. He wasn’t just angry; he was furious. Emotions that were unfamiliar, and certainly unappreciated, surged through him. He didn’t even know what he was doing.
Fake marriage or not, out of respect he had decided not to indulge in extramarital affairs. He’d at least expected her to show the same courtesy.
They’d only just had the ceremony, and it was about the optics of the situation.
Yeah, right...the optics.
Thrusting aside the unwelcome voice, Lukas forced himself to move to a chair, throwing himself down with his usual insouciance and stretching his arms out behind his head. No need for his deceitful new bride to know just how pent-up he was.
But then he watched as her eyes followed the line of his chest, as though drawn there against her will. That tiny intake of breath. The flicker of her tongue over
her lips. It appalled and thrilled him in equal measure.
That attraction between them was still there. That was something. He could use that to his advantage.
Is that all it is? a voice taunted inside his head.
Lukas chose to ignore it.
‘Perhaps I failed to be clear before, but I am very protective of what is mine. And since, as you so conveniently pointed out a few moments ago, we only married yesterday.’
‘Is that so?’ She surprised him. ‘I didn’t think we would be playing by those rules.’
‘Well, we are.’
‘Both of us?’ she demanded. ‘Or just me?’
For a long moment Lukas stared at her. And slowly he began to realise what was going on, the truth of it making him want to jump up and punch the air in triumph.
Inexplicably.
‘Is that what this is about?’ He grinned. And she blinked at him as though she wasn’t sure how or why the tables had turned. ‘Tit for tat? You think I’ll cat around, so you’re getting your kicks in first?’
‘I think you’ll cat around?’ she echoed scornfully, doing a half-decent job of pretending that she was aghast, in Lukas’s opinion. ‘I don’t think it, Lukas. I know it. Look at your reputation.’
‘And so you intend to do the same?’ He wasn’t sure how he managed to stay in his seat.
Especially when she shrugged so easily.
‘Why not?’
‘This will not continue now that we are married,’ he told her. Serenely.
Taking it as a victory that she stiffened perceptibly.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Another flash of a smile that felt too sharp on his own mouth. He didn’t understand what he was doing, or why he felt so...outside himself. But it didn’t seem to matter. The words were coming out, anyway.
‘Whoever you met this afternoon, you will not meet him again. Do you understand?’
‘I know your reputation,’ she continued too evenly, as she casually plucked a tiny piece of non-existent lint from those deliciously backside-hugging jersey trousers.
It was a habit of hers he’d noticed right from that first night, five months ago. Though he couldn’t have said why he’d been so paying so much attention.