Reaching out, he caught hold of her hand, stilling the nervy gesture with a grip so strong that she could do nothing but submit to his control.
But she didn’t have to look at him. She couldn’t look at him for fear of what she might read in his face. And so she kept her own head stubbornly averted, staring fixedly down at the carpet as if fascinated by the sight of his polished black leather handmade boots planted firmly on the thick carpet.
Staking his claim again. The memory of her own thoughts earlier came unwillingly to her mind, dousing the fire of her mutiny like a bucket of cold water tossed over a leaping flame.
‘Peta, sweetheart, are you going to explain just what is going on inside that delightful head of yours? What is it that is bugging you—and why?’
That ‘sweetheart’ was just too much. He used it casually, easily, without even thinking. He didn’t mean it. Not really. It was just a word, one he dropped into conversation without a care. It was what people—outsiders—expected a husband to say to his wife.
But not this husband. Not to this wife.
And she knew he never thought about the effect it might have. That he never for one moment considered how she might feel, hearing him direct that apparently loving term at her and knowing that it had no place anywhere inside their marriage.
Because love had no part at all in this relationship between herself and Liam.
At least, it had had none at the very beginning. The arrangement was a marriage of convenience from start to finish. No emotions involved in any way. Or, rather, that was how it was supposed to have been. How it had always been on Liam’s side. And on hers at first—at the very beginning.
But not now. Now things had changed. Changed so fundamentally that she was no longer convinced that she could continue with this marriage in the way they had decided just over a year ago. She didn’t think she could continue with it in any way at all. Not unless things changed in a way that just didn’t seem possible.
She had told herself that she would do as Liam wanted. Play it his way. But it was getting so much harder with every day that passed. Because she hadn’t stuck to the guidelines, the rules they had so carefully laid out from the moment they had agreed to this marriage of convenience. Instead, she had committed the worst sin of all.
She had fallen head over heels, totally, recklessly, blindly—impossibly—irretrievably in love with this husband of convenience of hers. And that love was the last thing he wanted from her.
And the knowledge of that fact had driven her to desperate measures. For the last few months, she had been actively taking steps to make sure she didn’t conceive the baby that she knew Liam wanted, even though it had almost broken her heart to do so.
CHAPTER TWO
‘DON’T call me sweetheart! I don’t like it!’
It was the nearest she dared come to expressing the whirling thoughts in her head, the pain that was burning in her heart.
‘First I’ve heard of it—but—fine!’
The nonchalance of his answer made matters even worse, heaping coals on the fires of misery she was already struggling with.
‘Is that what’s bugging you?’
His expression made it plain that he thought she was really way over the top if she was making such a fuss about a simple word.
‘What? No, of course not.’
‘Then would you mind explaining just what is?’
The way the words were cut off, sharp, cold and clipped, left her in no doubt at all that whatever control he had had over his temper was now rapidly wearing thin. All it would take was one more hesitation, an attempt to dodge the issue, and he would lose it completely. And Liam in a temper was something she didn’t want to risk, especially not tonight.
‘It’s—it’s this party—’ she tried again.
‘What about the party?’
‘I’m not sure it’s—it’s right.’
‘Right?’
The word was clearly the last one he had expected to hear.
‘Right?’ he repeated, frowning his confusion. ‘Precisely what is wrong with it.’
‘Nothing’s wrong with the party. It’s just that I’m not sure that it’s right for us to be celebrating like this. No—listen…’ she put in hastily when he drew a swift, sharp breath in through his teeth, obviously priming himself for some sort of cutting retort. ‘It’s the first anniversary of our wedding day.’
‘A fact that I am only too well aware of.’
The black irony of his tone made her wince but she forced herself to ignore it so that she had the nerve to continue.
‘But it wasn’t exactly the sort of wedding day most people have. The sort they’d want to celebrate. Ours isn’t that type of marriage. It never was and it never will be.’
But she had dreamed that it could be, and that was the problem. She had dreamed of love and happy ever after and those dreams had been stronger even than her longing to become a mother. But it was only as the mother of his children that Liam had wanted her.
‘And yet we’ve invited all these people. My family—your grandfather—friends…’
‘They wanted to come. Besides, it’s Christmas, and everyone loves a party at Christmas.’
Liam was being deliberately awkward. Surely by now he knew exactly what she meant. She didn’t have to spell it out.
But it seemed that she did.
‘They wanted to come to help us celebrate. But they don’t know the truth of it. They don’t know that our marriage is really little more than a business arrangement and not the love match they believe it to be. I don’t feel that we have the right to expect them to celebrate something that is little more than a lie.’
‘A lie!’
She’d caught him on the raw there, somehow. And it was clear he didn’t like it. The stunning features darkened swiftly and with a rough movement he twisted the hair-brush from her hands, tossing it aside, careless of the way it fell to the floor with a soft thud and spun away across the carpet.
The next moment hard fingers closed over her arms and she was wrenched up close to him. So close that she was forced to tilt her chin sharply in order to look up into his face. It was either that or bury her head in his shoulder, and with every one of her senses instantly on red alert at simply being near him she didn’t dare to risk any close contact. Already the warm, clean scent of his skin was coiling round her, unbearably provocative, instantly arousing. And his beautiful, sensual mouth was almost exactly at eye level; the temptation to lift her head just a little higher and press her lips to his was almost irresistible.
She could kiss him out of this mood, she knew. At least, she’d always been able to do that in the past. But now, after that awkward moment in the bathroom when he’d completely blanked her, she didn’t think she dared to risk it. The thought of another rejection was frankly more than she could bear.
And besides her conscience was troubling her badly, as it had been for months now. When she had mentioned a lie, what she had really meant was her own recent behaviour, the guilty truth she was holding back.
‘A lie,’ Liam repeated, more quietly, but no less harshly. ‘This marriage is no lie, sweetheart. It’s exactly what we wanted. It’s exactly what we’ve made it—and that makes it a lot more honest than most.’
‘But…’ Peta tried to break in, nerving herself to tell him, but he swept on, totally ignoring her attempted interjection.
‘Believe me, there are many of those who start out believing