‘You’re sure?’
She nodded jerkily. ‘Let’s just keep it small. A quick, private ceremony.’
His eyes didn’t leave her face. He watched her for several long seconds.
‘Like ripping off a sticking plaster?’ he prompted, with a hint of mocking amusement.
‘Yes.’ She was relieved, though.
‘I know this isn’t what either of us would have chosen, but it’s the right thing to do.’
Butterflies rampaged through her belly. She nodded, almost convinced he was right.
‘So why do you look as though you’re about to have a root canal?’
Her eyes flew wide. ‘Do I?’
‘Or worse,’ he said quietly, straightening and taking a step towards her. ‘Is the idea of marrying me really so appalling to you?’
Her eyes scanned his face, her heart slamming into her rib cage with the force of a freight train. Annie contemplated it, trying to find words to express how she felt.
‘It’s just very sudden,’ she said eventually.
‘For us both,’ he pointed out, closing the distance between them, coming to stand toe-to-toe, bracing his arms on either side of her, his body caging hers. Her heart moved faster and harder for a different reason now, reminding her of how it had felt to be in his arms at the boutique that morning, pressed hard against him, his mouth on hers. Her gaze dropped to his lips and her own parted in memory and need.
‘There’s so much I don’t know about you.’
‘And what you do know, you don’t like?’ he suggested.
Her pulse fired. He was right. She had been angry with him for a long time—her heart broken, her feelings hurt. But that all seemed so long ago. Seven years was a long time in anyone’s life but for Annie, with all she’d had to keep her busy, the trials she’d faced every day, it had been like a lifetime.
‘The truth is, I barely know you.’
Was that really the truth? Standing like this, she felt as though he was familiar to her in an elemental way. Memories of the night they’d spent together were hovering on the brink of her mind, as though they’d happened only a night or so ago, not seven years.
‘You’ll get to know me.’
‘And to like you?’
‘That would make our marriage easier,’ he said with a tight smile.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. The difficulty, though, wasn’t in liking him—it was in liking him too much. She needed to keep some perspective and remember that this was all for Max’s sake. Whatever girlhood infatuation she’d felt for Dimitrios, that was in the distant past. The last thing she should do was let her physical response to him make her forget the truth of their situation.
‘What time will Max be home?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Soon.’
She was glad. Max was a talisman of reality. ‘We should get this over with, then.’
He lifted a brow and she realised the way he could misconstrue her words. Heat flamed in her cheeks. ‘Firming up on the details, I mean.’
‘Of course.’ His response was tongue-in-cheek. She felt as if he was mocking her.
‘So the wedding will be on Friday?’
He nodded, apparently back to being business-like, but he didn’t move his body. Traitorous feelings made her glad.
‘In the morning. I thought we’d fly to Singapore straight after lunch.’