Claiming My Bride of Convenience

She jerked back at that word, and something flashed across her face that looked deeper than hurt, worse than fear.

‘I’m not that man, Daisy. I was never that man. I warned you at the start. I made it quite clear. I am not interested in the illusion of love.’

‘Do you really think it’s an illusion,’ she whispered, ‘or are you just afraid of it?’

I stilled at that, because she had pierced to the very heart of the matter and in that moment I hated her for it.

‘I am not afraid,’ I snarled. ‘And if you can’t agree to the terms of this marriage that I set out at the beginning, then—’ I broke off, even now not wanting to deliver the final blow and fell her. Fell our chance at happiness. Because I had been happy these last few weeks. Happier than I’d ever been in my life.

But what was a little happiness?

‘Then what?’ Daisy whispered. Her face was pale, her lips bloodless. ‘Just what is your ultimatum?’

‘Then we won’t have much longer to finish out this convenient marriage,’ I said, the words falling into the stillness like pebbles being dropped down a well. ‘My grandfather has only a few more weeks to live, if that.’

She flinched, but still held my gaze. ‘We can’t get an annulment any more. Are you asking for a divorce?’

Was she trying to push me into one—or into some pointless declaration? Either way, I would not be manipulated.

‘We can sort the details out later. There’s also the matter of a potential pregnancy,’ I reminded her. ‘I will not divorce the mother of my child.’

‘Well, you can rest easy there,’ she answered, a ragged note entering her voice. ‘Because I’m not pregnant. I got my period this morning.’

I ignored the wave of disappointment that caused to crash over me. It was better this way.

‘So I’ll go, then?’

She rose from her seat, all wounded dignity and barely-there pride. That chin.

‘Back to Amanos?’

I stood there, howling inside, and part of me—a very large part—even now wanted to take it all back. To take her into my arms and beg her to stay, to bear with me, because I was honestly trying and everything in me was raw with grief and rage.

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make myself that weak, that vulnerable. I couldn’t bear to see the pity in her eyes, to feel the soft touch of her compassion. And I couldn’t do as she asked and forgive my grandfather.

So I said nothing, and after an endless damning silence Daisy slowly nodded, the movement unbearably final.

It wasn’t until she’d walked out of the room in the wake of my silence that I realised this was the weakest and most fearful I’d been yet—because I’d let her go.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘MATTY!’

I smiled at my brother even as everything in me ached. It had been twenty-four hours since Daisy had left for Amanos, and it had been the longest and most awful day of my life. The only bright light was the hours I’d spent with Andreas.

I knew I didn’t see him enough. Since his injury Andreas had lived on the top floor of my grandfather’s house, in a set of purpose-made rooms, with a full-time carer. He was happy that way, preferring routine to change, and he had all he could wish for—toys, books, a TV with endless DVDs... Everything a man with the mind of an eight-year-old could wish for.

What he didn’t have was any attention or notice from his grandfather.

Spending time with him was simple for me. Before his accident Andreas and I had rubbed along together warily, during our infrequent times together, but since his injury we’d become close, because everything had become so wonderfully uncomplicated.

Now I smiled and sat down across from him on the floor, where he was building a huge construction out of plastic building bricks.

‘What’s this, then?’ I asked, and Andreas proceeded to tell me about the city he was building in all its

childish complexity.

After about fifteen minutes of happily chatting away, he looked up at me, blinking slowly. ‘Matty, why are you sad?’