Claiming His Bride. Daphne Clair

objected. ‘I wanted to marry you, and I thought you were grown up enough to make a logical decision too.’

      Logical? She almost laughed aloud. ‘I did,’ she told him, ‘when I decided not to go through with it.

      ‘A bit late.’

      ‘Better late than never. Or rather, better than even later…after we’d tied the knot.’

      Below them the city lights winked and sparkled, and the water yawned black and still within the curved arms of the harbour. Blaize said, ‘I didn’t look on it as a business merger, Sorrel. We knew each other so well, and—I thought—enjoyed each other’s company so much, marriage seemed a natural progression. I looked forward to spending the rest of my life with you. To making love with you. In case you doubted it, from when you were in your teens I found you very attractive.’

      Everything he said only confirmed her conviction that she’d done the right thing. ‘You weren’t in love with me.’

      ‘In love?’ He seemed to consider that. ‘I’d been in love, several times—an emotional high that didn’t last.’

      So he’d decided a cool-headed bargain was a better basis for a permanent relationship. Had she been unreasonable, hankering for something more? ‘All those times it wasn’t real then, was it?’

      ‘What we had, you and I, was real—or so I thought. More real than some flash-in-the-pan love affair.’

      ‘A passionless marriage?’ Her mouth twisted.

      ‘Passionless?’ He was looking through the wind-screen, negotiating another tricky curve. ‘What gave you that idea? I just told you I was looking forward to our lovemaking.’

      And he’d been willing to wait until they were married. So had she, though it had crossed her mind once or twice that his fortitude was unusual. Even her parents wouldn’t have been terribly shocked if she and Blaize had been sleeping together, but Sorrel wouldn’t have been comfortable doing so under their roof, and although since he’d turned twenty Blaize had his own bachelor apartment, he’d never invited her to stay the night.

      Admittedly he’d wanted the wedding to take place only a couple of months after slipping the diamond engagement ring on her finger, but as their eventual marriage had been tacitly accepted for so long the engagement was only a formality.

      While their mothers plunged into a whirlwind of planning, carrying Sorrel along with them, Blaize’s kisses had become increasingly exciting and frequently left her aroused and frustrated, her only consolation the glitter in his eyes and the reluctance with which he put her away from him before leaving her. But he had always been in control, never asking for more than kisses, his hands exploring the contours of her body but not intruding inside her clothes.

      Sorrel supposed he’d known, or at least guessed, that she was a virgin. She had briefly dated other young men but been serious about none of them. At the back of her mind she’d been aware she was destined to be Blaize’s bride, and it would have seemed like cheating to give herself to anyone else.

      Presumably he’d had no such scruples. She was sure his experience had far outweighed hers.

      Four years ago she had accepted that as a fact of life. Why should the thought now arouse an intense resentment? She felt her nails digging into the soft skin of her palms, and carefully relaxed her hands.

      If Blaize seemed unable to let go of the past, he wasn’t alone. Since seeing him again she’d found a whole Pandora’s box of conflicting emotions seething in her soul.

      But she didn’t want to quarrel—to start flinging accusations, exchanging recriminations. It would get them nowhere and only add fuel to the smouldering ashes of the past.

      ‘I’m sure making love with you would have been a pleasant experience,’ she said, trying to borrow some of his objectivity. ‘You do everything well, don’t you?’

      ‘I’ve never claimed perfection.’

      ‘I guess it just comes naturally to you.’ And that wouldn’t help—sarcasm wasn’t calculated to smooth troubled waters.

      ‘Obviously not,’ he rejoined harshly. ‘Since you found me wanting.’

      ‘Not you,’ she said. ‘The…situation. I should never have let things go so far.’ Hope had kept her procrastinating—hope for some sign that like her, Blaize was falling deeper in love every day. That their marriage would be more than a pragmatic personal merger, not very much different from a business one, with the added fillip of sex. But the closest he’d ever come was a careless ‘Love you, hon,’ as he left her after a date. And instead of becoming closer during their engagement, she’d felt they were growing further and further apart.