A Convenient Proposal

'If I need…' He was stunned, he wasn't even pretending to be anything else, which was some sort of breakthrough anyway, Candy thought with dry self-mockery. 'How can you say you're happy for us to split when you've just told me in the other breath you love me?' he asked flatly as dark colour flared across the chiselled cheekbones. He was sitting bolt upright now.

'I didn't say I would be happy.' She forced herself to speak clearly and calmly, although her tummy was churning. 'Of course I wouldn't choose for us to split.'

'Well, thank you for that at least,' he said with cutting sarcasm.

'You know exactly what I am saying.' Don't lose your temper. Don't say anything you don't mean. 'You see this marriage as a convenient base for two friends living together, sleeping together and so on, whilst they each pursue their separate lives to a large extent. No heavy emotional demands, no needing each other, no e

xpectations.' And no children, no roses round the door—none of what will make my life worth living when I want you so badly I could die with it.

'And you see it as—what, exactly?' he asked curtly.

She had told him she loved him and he hadn't even commented on it! She could feel the quick temper that went with her chestnut red hair rising, and silently warned herself to take care.

'I'm not going back on our arrangement, Quinn.' She could feel herself beginning to glare and tried to moderate her gaze.

'Forgive me if I don't see it quite that way.'

And then suddenly she understood, her love for him making her super-sensitive. 'You're acting like this deliberately, aren't you?' she said half to herself as she stared at him. 'If you don't acknowledge in your heart I love you it hasn't happened! That's it, isn't it? If we fight and argue it can all be passed off as a row, and you were used to rows with Laura. Well, I'm not playing that game! I love you, Quinn. I want to be a proper wife to you, to be everything you need, not afraid to ask you anything too personal in case I'm stepping out of line. I want to be there for you whatever happens—'

'Shouldn't you be getting ready?'

His cool voice was like a slap across the face, and in spite of all her resolve Candy reacted to it in much the same manner. It was either bursting into tears or yelling, and the former could happen in the shower. 'Yes, I'm going to get ready!' she barked angrily. 'And I'm going to see real people, thank goodness. Xavier and Essie have gone through the mill just as much as you have, but they weren't frightened to reach out and take a chance on love when the real thing happened.'

'And you're telling me you are sure what you feel is the real thing?' he asked with hateful cynicism. 'Isn't that a little presumptuous when just a short while ago you had set your heart on a glittering career without any emotional commitments to mess it up? Or was that some other woman I was talking to?'

'No, that was me,' she said more quietly. She would never penetrate that cast-iron barrier. This was pointless.

'So what happened?'

'You.' She looked straight into the familiar handsome face and said bravely, 'You happened,' and then turned and went into the bathroom.

She cried in the shower. Not least because she had reneged on every good intention she had had not to tell Quinn she loved him or put any pressure on him or ask him to change. But hell! Her chin lifted slightly as the tears still coursed down her face. She had never pretended to be a saint, had she? And he wasn't a little boy who needed protecting from real life. She loved him. It was a fact of life, and if she had to deal with it the least he could do, in the circumstances, was to bite the bullet and deal with it too.

She dug her fingers deep into her scalp as she massaged the shampoo into her hair and forced her mind away from her own problems to focus on Xavier and Essie. They were the important ones at the moment. Xavier and Essie and little Rose Candice. The baby had to be all right Xavier and Essie had each suffered so much in their lives before they had found each other; she couldn't believe their child would be taken from them.

She was still thinking of her uncle and his wife when she walked back into the bedroom. Quinn had placed a small suitcase on the bed for her, and after quickly drying her hair and bundling it up in a loose knot on the top of her head she began to pack.

'There's a flight at eleven.'

She raised her head to see Quinn enter the room, making for the bathroom. She tried to think of something to say and failed utterly beyond a quiet. 'Thank you' to which he responded with a curt nod.

And then, when she thought he had closed the bathroom door, it opened again and he said gruffly, 'There's fresh coffee and toast ready in the kitchen.'

The drive to Heathrow was strained, and Candy was sporting a thumping headache by the time they reached the airport They had only spoken in monosyllables, and she didn't want to leave Quinn like this, but she didn't know what to say to break the electric atmosphere without causing another row. Had she lost him altogether? She tried not to think of it and concentrate on Xavier and Essie and the baby but it was hard.

'This reminds me of when I shot up to Essie with a bag so she could go to Xavier when you were injured.'

They had just entered the terminal and Candy wasn't sure if she had heard the muttered words correctly. She turned to Quinn, her voice a little vacant due to the pain across her eyes as she said, 'What?'

'Hell, Candy, I might never have met you.' He was wearing a deep violet-blue shirt and black jeans and there wasn't a pair of female eyes that hadn't taken a second glance.

'Quinn?' She stared at him. How did he expect her to respond when he said things like that?

'Come on, let's book in and then we can talk. I'm coming with you.'

'But…'

She allowed herself to be steered through the throng of humanity and in no time at all they were sitting in the relative tranquillity of the VIP lounge, a pot of coffee steaming gently on the table in front of them.