‘It’s not necessary to charm me. We both had good reasons to get married and that’s the only fulfilment either of us require from our agreement. You got a wife and, hopefully, I will eventually be able to adopt Amber,’ Tabby spelt out as she slid out of the car and walked into the house.
‘That’s not how I feel,’ Acheron informed her stubbornly.
‘We’re not twin souls and nor are we required to be,’ Tabby flipped back, walking through to the lounge, which stood with doors wide open to the terrace and the view of the cove, draperies fluttering softly in the slight breeze that never seemed to leave the coast. ‘I think we’re overdue a little plain speaking here.’
Outside, she leant up against the rail bordering the terrace and folded her arms in a defensive position. She knew what she needed to say. She was more than halfway to getting her heart broken by the stupid, dangerous pretence that she was on a real honeymoon with a real husband! How had she let that happen? How had she let herself fall in love with a male who was simply doing what he had to do to give the appearance of being a newly married man?
‘Meaning?’ Acheron prompted, stilling in the doorway, six feet plus inches of stunning male beauty and charisma.
Tabby looked him over with carefully blank eyes. He was gorgeous; he had always been gorgeous from the crown of his slightly curly black head to the soles of his equally perfect feet. He focused sizzling dark golden eyes on her with interrogative intensity.
‘Tabby?’ he prompted afresh.
‘Unlike you I call a spade a spade. I don’t wrap it up.’
‘I appreciate that about you...that what you say you mean,’ he countered steadily.
Tabby threw her slight shoulders back, violet eyes wide and appealing. ‘Look, let’s just bring the whole charade to an end here and now
,’ she urged. ‘Melinda was spying on us and she’s gone. We’ve done all the newly happily married stuff for weeks and now surely we can both go back to normal?’
‘Normal?’
Tabby was wondering what the matter with him was, for it was not like him to take a back seat in any argument. Furthermore, he looked strained, having lost colour while his spectacular strong bone structure had set rigid below his bronzed skin. ‘We were strangers with a legal agreement, Ash,’ she reminded him painfully. ‘We’ve met the terms, put on the show and now surely we can return to being ourselves again behind closed doors at least?’
‘Is that what you want?’ he pressed curtly, lean brown hands closing into fists by his side. ‘Don’t you think this is a decision best shelved for a less traumatic day?’
Tabby lifted her chin, her heart squeezing tight inside her chest, pain like a sharp little arrow twisting inside her because, of course, it was not what she wanted. She wanted him; she was in love with him but she had to protect herself, had to force herself to accept that what they had shared was only a pretence. ‘No.’
‘You want to go back to where we started out?’ Acheron demanded starkly.
Tabby dropped her shoulders, her eyes veiling. ‘No, I just want us to be honest and not faking anything.’
Acheron breathed in very slow and deep, dark golden eyes glittering like fireworks below the shield of his luxuriant black lashes. ‘I haven’t been faking anything...’
Tabby’s dazed mind ran over all the romancing, the sexing, the hand-holding, the fun, and she blinked in bemusement. ‘But of course you were faking.’
‘It may have started out that way, but it ended up real, yineka mou.’ Acheron surveyed her steadily but she knew he was putting up a front because he was really, really tense.
‘How...real?’ Tabby questioned, her heart thumping like mad.
Acheron lifted his arms and spread his hands in an oddly defenceless gesture. ‘I fell in love with you...’
Tabby almost fell over in shock, her brain refusing to accept that he could have said that he loved her. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re just scared that I’m about to walk out on our marriage agreement and you’ll lose your company—but you don’t need to be scared of that happening because I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m still as determined to adopt Amber as I ever was, so I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to,’ she pointed out honestly.
‘When I try to say, “I love you” for the first time in my life to a woman, you could at least listen to what I’m saying and stop talking a lot of rubbish!’ Acheron shot back at her with scorching effect.
Tabby was struck dumb by that little speech. He was serious? He wasn’t joking, faking, trying to manipulate her in some nefarious way? She stared back at him fixedly.
‘And it was bloody hard to say too!’ Acheron added in angry complaint at her response.
‘I’m in shock,’ Tabby mumbled shakily. ‘I didn’t think you had any feelings for me.’
‘I tried very hard not to. I fought it every step of the way,’ Acheron admitted ruefully. ‘But in the end you got to me and you got to me so hard I ran away from it.’
‘Ran away?’ Tabby almost whispered in growing disbelief.
‘I was feeling strange and that’s why I took off on business...to give myself a little breathing space,’ Acheron qualified tautly. ‘But the minute I got away I realised I only wanted to come back and be with you.’