A Vow to Secure His Legacy

‘I apologise for that.’ A pulse ticked in his jaw as he helped himself to cheese and home-made crackers. ‘I overreacted. I see now you were trying to make a point.’ Suddenly, he looked up, his eyes, dark as bitter coffee, snaring hers. ‘But there was no need to prove yourself.’

Imogen spread her hands. ‘It was important to make it clear I didn’t want any more from you. You’ve done so much, acted so...honourably.’ That old-fashioned word seemed apt. For surely that was what Thierry’s grave concern, his gentleness and the efforts he’d gone to on her behalf, amounted to?

‘It’s done now. I suggest we forget it.’ Yet he hadn’t. There was an edge to his voice.

‘But there’s something bothering you.’

He dropped his gaze to her breasts, and her nipples peaked against the crisp cotton. ‘From here everything looks perfect.’

Heat crept from her breasts to her throat and face. She still hadn’t grown used to such blatantly carnal looks. They threatened to turn her brain as well as her bones to mush. After all, she’d spent twenty-five years avoiding risk, playing safe.

Thierry and her—this connection between them—had been easier to cope with when she’d been able to write it off as a flare of passing attraction, a desperate fling of a dying woman. But she had a full life before her now. She had to come to grips with what was happening.

Her whole being lit up when he looked at her that way. Focusing was almost impossible.

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re changing the subject?’

Thierry blinked and for an instant she read tension in that powerful frame.

‘Things have changed,’ he said finally. ‘You were right about that.’

Imogen’s frustration levels rose when he didn’t continue. If he wouldn’t confront the elephant in the room, she would.

‘I’m not dying. Which means we’ve saddled ourselves with marriage when we needn’t have.’ The words tasted bitter.

‘Saddled?’ His nostrils flared as if in distaste.

‘Come on, Thierry. Don’t tell me you wanted a permanent wife. Marriage made sense when I thought I was dying and it meant you could claim our baby. But now—’

‘Now you want to back out of it?’

‘It’s not a matter of backing out. It’s a matter of being sensible.’ The thought of leaving him tore at something vital inside her. But she owed him. That knowledge threatened to shatter every certainty she’d once harboured.

All her life she’d been risk-averse, carefully building security for herself, keeping herself independent of any man, she realised. No wonder Scott had found it so easy to walk away from her, using the time she’d devoted to her mother as an excuse. Now it seemed her happiness was bound up with a man she’d met just months ago.

Yet she couldn’t hold Thierry to this marriage, not unless they were both committed to it. ‘You were kind to me when I most needed it. I don’t want to repay you with a complication you never wanted.’

No matter how she yearned for him.

Sexual attraction alone was not a sound basis for a relationship. As far as she knew, that was all he felt for her, plus responsibility for their baby.

‘You think of our child as a complication?’

She struggled to read his inflection.

‘It was unexpected, but I can’t regret it. I was referring to me being a complication in your life.’ Why was he so obtuse? His quick understanding was one of the things she loved about him.

Loved.

Something clenched in the deepest recesses of her soul.

It was true. It was really true.

Here she was, trying to convince him he didn’t need a spouse, when all the time...

Imogen sucked in a deep breath, dizzy with the implications of the one crucial fact she’d been avoiding for weeks.

‘Imogen?’ Thierry’s frown grew, lines ploughing his forehead and carving around his mouth.

Helplessly, she stared at him. She was in far too deep when the sight of his concern threatened to undo her resolve. She tried to tell herself that it was natural she’d grown fond of him when he’d been so wonderful.

But fond didn’t go anywhere near describing her visceral need for Thierry. A need that was far more than physical.

Imogen crossed her arms as if to hide the tumultuous throb of her heart hurling itself against her ribs.

‘I could be on a flight in a day or two.’ She dragged the words out. ‘There’s no need for...’ She waved her hand across the bed as words dissolved.