Rule's Seduction (The House of Rule 4)

The only problem—she didn’t have an appropriate answer. She could give him the truth, simple as it was, but she didn’t think he was going to like it.

“Erin,” he snapped. “I’m waiting.”

“I fell asleep,” she stalled.

A look came over his features as if he wanted to shake her. “I realize that—why in the closet? Why not in our bed?”

Swinging her feet to the floor, she stood and sidestepped him out of the closet and into the bathroom, as her heart beat loudly in her ears. She glanced in the mirror and almost had a heart attack. No sleep—it reflected on her face, giving her a haggard appearance. She made a grab for toothpaste and toothbrush, and as he looked on with a storm cloud brewing on his features, she quickly scrubbed her teeth, trying to ignore his un-ignorable presence. Clearly, she would have to get accustomed to a lack of privacy, whether she wanted to or not.

Finishing her record-breaking toilette with a cool washcloth to the face, she turned to face him, her hands clenching the edge of the vanity. He stood watching her, waiting for an answer.

“I couldn’t get to sleep, so I got out of bed for a different nightgown. I remember sitting on the chaise, but I don’t remember lying down or falling asleep.” Such a prevarication . . . but she wasn’t about to tell him the truth—that it was too personal and too painful to lay next to him when he felt nothing for her.

No, he wasn’t going to know every thought in her head. And he wouldn’t, not any time soon, not if she could help it.

****

Max was silent for several seconds as he tried to gauge the truthfulness of Erin’s words. “Why would you need a different nightgown? Or a nightgown at all?”

“Why the million questions?” she retaliated. “What’s the big deal?”

She didn’t get it? Had he not just told her he’d searched for her for almost two hours? “The big deal is that I thought you’d gone missing. I thought something had happened to you. I didn’t expect to find you hiding in the damn closet.”

“I wasn’t hiding—I was asleep!”

He focused on the circles under her eyes and the fine lines of her face, hating that she wasn’t assimilating to Argentina as quickly as he needed her to. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “You don’t look like you slept much.”

“Well, thanks a lot for that,” she replied flatly.

“Why did you have trouble sleeping?”

“What do you want me to say, Max? This is all new to me. It’s not every day that I’m blackmailed into marriage.

Son-of-a-bitch, that pissed him off—and it hurt. “Blackmailed?”

“Whatever. Coercion, trickery, foul play.” Her eyes narrowed. “Take your pick.”

“Spare me, please,” he said as he felt his annoyance come back and ramp up a notch. All he needed were two things. He needed her to be happy here, and he needed her to sleep next to him. That was all he needed. He wasn’t asking for a lot. With that thought, he pushed the door of her dressing room all the way ajar. He wasted no time as he began moving the chaise out of the closet.

“Stop!” she shrieked. “What are you doing?”

He stalled, his eyes narrowing. “What does it look like? I’m not taking the chance that you’ll go missing again.”

She pushed off the counter and plunked down on the piece of furniture as if her weight alone would stop him. “Now that you know where I was, couldn’t you just look in my damn closet if you can’t find me? Would that be so difficult?”

“You’re not sleeping in the closet, Erin.”

“I’m not saying I’m going to,” she hedged. “But I like this piece of furniture—it’s lovely.”

He immediately realized that it was unreasonable to remove the piece. She obviously found comfort in it—he’d planned it that way, after all. And, he admitted silently, to do away with it would show an insecurity that he didn’t care for. As well as a cruelty he didn’t care to inflict on her.

As he stood watching her sitting stiff as a board, it occurred to him that maybe he could negotiate a trade. “Fine. You can keep it—if—” he allowed his voice to trail off.

“If what?” she asked, as if on cue.

Pacing the two steps to where she sat, he lifted her chin until her eyes were focused on him. He ran his finger down her silken cheek, the softness of her skin sending what felt like tingles through his veins. He tried to ignore the electric feeling, the sexual chemistry—he had to push his advantage now. “You can keep the piece—if you explain to me what you meant last night about a fairytale.”

Much to his chagrin, her expression closed up, shielding whatever she was thinking from him. She bit her lip and turned away, her delicate profile in lines of strain sending a hit of alarm rushing through his bloodstream. He couldn’t fuck this up—he couldn’t. With the weight of indecision making his brainpower all but worthless, he kissed her on the forehead and left before he did or said something completely stupid.