His words should hardly have surprised her, let alone upset her—after all she’d agreed to this relationship partly to avoid anything emotional and meaningful. And yet the knowledge that she was just a means to an end still smarted.
‘It’s a wonder you even have a business if you put this little effort and commitment into all your other deals,’ she said stiffly. ‘Let me tell you something, Rollo, you might not care about me, or my feelings, but you do care about this deal. You must, or why else would I be here? But I’m an actress—not a miracle worker. And no one—certainly no one sane and rational—will ever believe our marriage is real if you carry on behaving like this.’
Surely he could understand what she was trying to say. That normal people in a normal relationship needed a level of trust and respect for one another to make it work.
She sighed. ‘I know you think it doesn’t matter how I feel. That I deserve it even. But it does matter because I can’t just ignore all the nasty things you say in private and then act all lovey-dovey in public.’
‘Why not? Surely that’s what acting is.’
His dismissive statement grated over her skin like a serrated knife.
‘What, like business is just people signing bits of paper?’ She shook her head dismissively, her brown eyes flashing with scorn. ‘I’m an actress. So trust me when I say that if you want an audience to believe in your performance, you can’t just pretend. You have to believe too. It’s not enough just to say you want me to be your wife. You’re going to have to act a little yourself. And commit to the part.’
She exhaled slowly.
‘So, even though you don’t like me or approve of me, can you just stop sitting in judgement of me and my brother? Otherwise we’re not going to be able to pull this off.’
His gaze rested on her face. ‘You broke into my office and he stole my watch. Doesn’t that give me some right to judge?’
‘No. It doesn’t,’ she said with spirit. ‘All you know about David is that he’s tall, twitchy and took your watch.’ Picturing her brother, she felt her hands start to tremble. ‘But you don’t know the real David. The David I know. He’s never done anything like this, ever. He’s the most law-abiding person you’ll ever meet. And the sweetest.’
Watching her eyes soften as she defended her brother, Rollo felt a tightness in his chest. There was something about Daisy and her devotion to her brother that touched him. Something he’d consciously chosen never to imagine. Only now it was here—inside his head, inside his home.
And it made him feel jaded and hollow, so that for a moment it was as though they’d traded places and he was the one creeping through a darkened office. Only he was intruding on something far more personal and private than an empty building.
She might not know truth from fiction, but her love for David was real and pure and unassailable.
His shoulders tightened, muscles setting.
Unassailable and undermining.
He clenched his jaw. Forget drugs and alcohol. Love was a far greater threat to health and happiness; it turned perfectly rational people into fools and strength into weakness. Love betrayed those it should protect and protected those who betrayed others.
He knew that from personal experience. His father’s total and unswerving love for his mother had been rewarded not with loyalty but defection. Worse, he had watched his mother weep, felt h
er pain as his own, only to realise that what he’d taken for misery had actually been self-pity and frustration. Only there had been no way of knowing that until it was too late. When all that had been left was a letter on the kitchen table.
It was why he’d sworn never to make the same mistake as his father. And why, when opportunity presented itself, he was choosing to ‘marry’ Daisy—a woman he didn’t and would never love.
Jaw tightening, Rollo stared past her, his guarded expression giving no hint of the turmoil inside his head.
‘If he’s so law-abiding and sweet, why did he steal my watch?’
Daisy blinked. Her palms were suddenly damp. It was a reasonable question, and she wanted to tell him the truth. Only how much should she tell? The little she knew about Rollo didn’t exactly encourage her to expect a sympathetic reaction. But, glancing up at his set, still face, she realised it was a risk she was going to have to take.
‘He needed the money. He’s been gambling online. And losing. A lot.’
Saying it out loud, she felt shock again. The same stomach-plunging mix of terror and denial she’d felt when David had finally broken down and told her the truth. Remembering the sharpness of his breath, the fluttering panic in his eyes as she’d tried to calm him down, she felt her vision blur and her stomach cramp around a hard, cold lump of misery.
‘I think it was fun at first,’ she said quietly. ‘Something to do when he couldn’t sleep. And then suddenly he had this huge, horrible debt.’
She could feel the misery spreading out and over her, like dark clouds blotting out the sun.
‘And now?’
She looked up.
‘He didn’t sell the watch, so is he still in debt?’ He was staring at her impassively—watching, waiting—but for the first time since they’d met, she felt he wasn’t judging her.