A Contract for His Runaway Bride

CHAPTER EIGHT

ELODIEWOKEFROMa deep, blissful sleep to find Lincoln had left the bed. She glanced at the bedside clock and frowned. It was three in the morning. She pushed back the covers and slipped on her wrap, tying the ties around her waist. There was no light on in the bathroom, but the doors leading out to the balcony were open, for she could see the billowing of the silk curtains as the night breeze stirred them. She pushed the curtains aside to find Lincoln standing against the balustrade with his back to her. He was wearing his underwear but the rest of him was naked.

‘Lincoln?’

He turned and smiled at her. ‘Sorry. Did I wake you?’

‘Not really.’ She went over to where he was standing and touched him on the arm. ‘Can’t you sleep?’

He picked up her hand from where it was resting on his arm and brought it up to his mouth, his eyes still holding hers. He kissed the ends of her fingers, one by one, his touch sending tremors of pleasure through her body.

‘I guess I’ve got used to spending the night alone.’

Elodie frowned. ‘Alone? I don’t understand... You mean you don’t spend the night with any of your...your lovers?’

Lincoln released her hand and turned back to look at the moonlit view. His hands gripped the balustrade and even in the low light she could see the straining of the tendons in the backs of his hands. ‘I prefer not to.’

Elodie stared at him for a long moment, trying to get her head around this latest revelation. He no longer spent the whole night with a lover. Then she recalled that he had said he hadn’t been with anyone for months after their breakup, in spite of the photo she had seen in the press the week after she’d jilted him. The photo that had cut at her like a flick knife, making her hate him for moving on so quickly.

She hadn’t realised until she saw the photo how much she had wanted him to come after her, to fight for her, to beg her to come back to him. To reassure her that he cared about her, that he wanted to be with her, that even, by some miracle, he loved her.

But he had done none of that.

And because of that damn photo she hadn’t made any effort to contact him other than the brief note of apology she had left on the hall table with the engagement ring—which, of course, he claimed he hadn’t got.

‘Lincoln...you said the other day you didn’t sleep with anyone for months after we broke up. Why was that?’

His expression was as screened as the moon was just then by a passing cloud. ‘Don’t go reading too much into it.’

‘But why did you actively encourage me—and the rest of the world when it comes to that—to believe you’d moved on to someone else the very next week?’

‘Why would that upset you? You were the one who jilted me. You made it clear we were over. More than clear.’

Elodie shifted her gaze from his and rolled her top lip over her bottom one, a frown still pulling at her forehead. ‘I know I had no right to be upset. I guess I thought you might...try and talk me round.’

He gave a short bark of incredulous laughter. ‘Really? You mean come crawling on my hands and knees, begging you to come back to me? Shows how little you knew me back then.’

Her shoulders went down on a heavy sigh. ‘Yes, well...that works both ways, doesn’t it?’

Lincoln glanced at her, his expression still inscrutable. But then he sighed and raked a hand through his hair, before dropping it back by his side. ‘Was there anything I could’ve said to get you to change your mind back then?’

His tone had lost its sharp, mocking edge and become deeper, almost gentle. Elodie forced a smile, not sure she wanted to reveal any more than she already had. It was funny, but she could parade in the skimpiest lingerie and swimwear on catwalks and billboards all over the world, and yet revealing her vulnerability to Lincoln was the scariest, most terrifying thing of all.

‘Probably not.’ She wrapped her arms around her body against the chill of the night air.

There was a lengthy silence.

Lincoln stepped closer and lifted her chin with two of his fingers, meshing his gaze with hers. ‘It wasn’t my best moment, having that photo circulated of me with that young woman.’ He gave a rueful twist of his mouth, then lowered his hand from her face and continued, ‘You should have heard the dressing-down Sylvia gave me. She thought it was unspeakably crass. But I was angry and bitter. It’s not often I get blindsided by someone—especially someone who’d claimed they loved me.’

But I did love you.

The words were stuck behind the wall of her pride. The pride she needed to keep from getting hurt all over again.

Elodie moved further away from him, wrapping her arms around her middle to ward off the sudden chill of the night air. ‘Look—I was young, and I had stars in my eyes. You showed me a world I’d never had access to before. A world of wealth and privilege and private jets and God knows what else. I fooled myself into thinking you cared about me, but what you cared about was having a beautiful wife. I’d have completed your successful lifestyle. A good-looking wife who you saw as an asset rather than a person in her own right. But you didn’t offer me your heart in return.’

‘I seem to remember you made the most of our breakup.’

The mocking tone was back, even more biting than before. And the steely look in his eyes was harder than the diamonds on her finger.

Elodie went back into the trench of her pride. ‘And why shouldn’t I have made the most of it? The sponsors approached me—not me them. I did realise it gave me the perfect opportunity to lift my profile, and I didn’t see any reason I shouldn’t use it. I was only doing itty-bitty modelling jobs before that, most of which only paid a pittance, and I found them demeaning. I wanted to get more control over the photos and the labels I wore, so shoot me for using our breakup to do it. Besides, you’re the one who always says you shouldn’t let emotions get in the way of a good business decision. I was simply taking your advice.’

There was a ringing silence.

Then Lincoln’s mouth began to twitch with a smile. ‘Methinks I’ve been hoist by my own petard.’

Elodie mock-pouted at him. ‘That’ll teach you for having one rule for you and another one for everyone else.’

He stepped towards her again and took her by the upper arms. His eyes meshed with hers, and there was a lopsided smile on his lips. He lifted his hand to her face and stroked his finger down the slope of her nose. ‘That’s another thing I missed about you. You always stood up to me.’

‘What? No one else has since?’