The Things I Do for You (The Alexanders 2)

“No more I think I love you?”

She grinned up at him. “Definitely not.”

* * * * *

NICK SAT ON the edge of Raina’s bed and watched as she tried to braid her long hair over her shoulder. If she felt well enough to be worried about her appearance, he figured she must be recovering quickly.

“I still can’t believe that Steven made up all those lies. He deliberately led me to believe that you tried to seduce his wife away from him. He never mentioned that you had no idea she was married.”

“I think it makes him feel better to blame someone else,” Nick replied.

“What if Steven hadn’t been divorced when I met him but hadn’t told me? That could have happened just as easily to me.” Raina reached out and grabbed his hand. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you he’d been calling. I just didn’t want to upset you or make you think you couldn’t trust me. He’s not the one I want. He never was. Are you mad at me?”

“I’m not upset with you. I’m just upset that you didn’t feel you could tell me. I don’t want you to keep anything from me.”

“I won’t. I’ve learned my lesson. I know you wouldn’t keep secrets from me, either. Especially about something as big as finances.”

Nick stopped and looked down at her. “Finances?”

“Yeah. Steven said that your foundation was in financial trouble.” Something in Nick’s face must have changed because she suddenly stopped talking. “Nick?” He looked up at her and she sucked in a deep breath. “There’s no truth to what Steven said is there?”

“I can’t lie to you, sweets. It’s the only thing that makes me who I am. I’ll always tell you the truth.”

“Then it’s true. You’re in financial trouble?”

“Not yet. But I probably will be if my foundation doesn’t get more investors soon.”

“Oh, God. I was really hoping he made that up just to be mean.” Raina paled and let go of his arm.

Nick couldn’t understand why his foundation was of any interest to her. Especially not enough to cause her to look like that.

“He didn’t make that part up, unfortunately.”

Raina’s eyes swung back to his face. “He was so surprised that you hadn’t asked me to donate. He thinks that was the reason you married me. That you had some master plan to use me to push your agenda.”

Nick gritted his teeth. “I would never use you.”

“So it never occurred to you before we were married that an association with me could help your foundation?”

Nick immediately thought of the day Matt had come to his office. It seemed like a million years ago that he’d had the idea of asking Ridley to convince Raina to help him.

“It occurred to me. I can’t pretend it didn’t occur to me. But that’s not why I married you.”

Raina scoffed. “Of course not. You married me because I’ve always been so nice to you.”

“All I was going to do was ask Ridley to talk to you about doing some ads for us. That’s all. I didn’t need to marry you for that.”

“I can’t believe how stupid I am sometimes.”

Nick’s heart sank. “Don’t say that. You can’t honestly believe that I married you to take advantage of you?”

“I’m sure you didn’t think of it that way. It was probably just a nice bonus. Marry the girl, have some hot sex, and instantly boost your public profile at the same time. A win-win-win all around, right?”

He hadn’t been on the receiving end of her sharp tongue in so long that he’d lost his armor. Every word she said sliced through him until Nick was shocked there weren’t holes straight through him.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“The thing I don’t get is why would you do that? Why would you go to all this trouble to make me fall in love with you? I was willing to marry you without all that. I was determined to keep things neutral between us. You’re the one who kept pushing for more.”