But he’d held it together then and he was holding it together now. No one had any inkling of the battle that had been raging inside him all evening, and it would stay that way. Even if Kate hadn’t imposed that no kissing, no inappropriate touching condition on their relationship, which now, perversely, was all he could think about, there was too much at stake to crack. He could not, and would not, concede even a millimetre of ground to anyone, let alone a woman who had once rendered him so unacceptably weak. Nevertheless, the tension gripping him was draining, and the minute Kate returned they’d leave. He’d drop her home and initiate the next step in the plan because, now, this evening, their work was done.
And here she was, he thought with a familiar bolt of heat, his gaze instinctively finding her as she wove sinuously between the tables towards him. Beneath the low, warm light of the chandeliers, she shimmered. Her hair gleamed and her skin glowed and the overall effect was irritat
ingly dazzling. But as she drew nearer, something struck him as wrong. The rest of her might be glowing but her face was pale. Her smile was too tight and no amount of smoky eye make-up could mask the fact that her eyes were overly bright.
Without even thinking to question why any of this was relevant, Theo abandoned his drink and got to his feet. He strode over to intercept her and took her elbow to draw her to one side, leading her through the French doors that opened onto the torch-lit terrace and into the warm jasmine-scented shadows. To his alarm, she didn’t protest.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said, noting the taut rigidity of her body and wondering whether it had anything to do with the pregnancy he was finding unexpectedly difficult to ignore.
She swallowed hard and stared at the ground an inch to his right. ‘Are we done here?’ she said, her voice strangely hoarse. ‘Because I’d like to leave.’
Theo frowned and thrust his hands in the pockets of his trousers. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tired?’
‘I’m always tired.’
‘So what’s different?’
‘It’s not important.’
Frustration speared through him. How could he help if he didn’t know what was wrong? ‘Anything that might affect what I’m trying to achieve here is important.’
‘Ah, yes,’ she said with a bitterness he found he didn’t like. ‘It wouldn’t do to forget that.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Okay, fine,’ she said, sighing in exasperation as she finally looked at him. ‘We’re fooling no one with this whole fake engagement thing, Theo.’
‘Oh?’ he said, the hurt in her eyes that she was trying so hard to hide hitting him in the gut and for some reason knocking him for six.
‘Apparently I’m a gold-digger who’s played the oldest trick in the book and trapped you into marriage by deliberately getting pregnant.’
What the hell? ‘According to who?’
‘Some women I overheard in the bathroom.’
‘I see.’
‘There’s no other possible explanation because someone like you would never see anything in someone like me.’
Wouldn’t he?
‘I did warn you,’ she added. ‘And they do have a point.’
No, they didn’t. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘The glowering, Theo.’
He frowned. ‘The what?’
‘You’ve been glowering at me all evening. I’ve been working my socks off and you just, well, haven’t. Aren’t you supposed to at least be pretending you’re interested in me?’