“Last night—”
“Was amazing.”
“It was, but—”
“Why does there have to be a ‘but’, Jacyn? Why can’t it justbe?”
She shook her head hard, not wanting to listen to anything he could say to change her mind. “It can’t just ‘be’. This isn’t what we agreed to. None of it was. I am your fiancée in name only. Our relationship is only pretend. What happened last night can’t happen again. Do you understand?”
“Did you not want it?” he challenged.
She groaned in frustrated anguish. “Yes, yes, of course I did. But we can’t allow it to happen again, because it will blur the lines between what’s real and what’s not. So just let me serve my time and then go home, okay?”
The expression on his face was pained. “I am not your jailer,ma puce.”
“That’s exactly what you are.”
Without finishing his drink, he got up. “Very well,” he agreed. “The sex, the intimacy it is over.”
She watched him leave, wanting with every fiber in her being to beg him to stay.
***
The only thing Alex could lose himself in was his work. For the next couple of days he spent hours in his office, making calls to his contractors in the east to follow up on their plans, and with his managers in the west to make sure their existing properties were humming along. Nathanael was back from his honeymoon, and it felt good to get back into a routine with his best friend and partner.
A tap on the door made him look up from his screen. For a moment he thought it might be Jacyn, but she’d been carefully polite around him since that evening, and most often didn’t come around him unless other family members were there. It pained him to know that she felt she needed a buffer between them.
Almost as much as it pained him to know that he wanted her so desperately that he could hardly think straight.
The door opened, and without his invitation, Sofia entered, locking the door behind herself. She rushed over to him in her usual overdramatic way and threw herself into his arms. He hugged her gingerly, and then set her back from him so he could see her pale, tear-streaked face. “Sofia?”
“It’s awful, Alex! So terrible! Your brother is divorcing me. He doesn’t want me anymore. After everything he did! He wants throw me to a side.”
Another surge of anger against Liam flooded him, followed by pity for this woman cared about. “I’m sorry to hear that. How is Willa handling this?”
Instead of answering, she flung her arms around him again, and began kissing his neck. “But this is a good thing, yes? We can make it a good thing. I’ll be free again soon. Free to get on with my life.”
He couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He’d gotten the impression that things weren’t going so well in the marriage. Sofia had casually mentioned to him that she and William didn’t share a bedroom. They hadn’t for years. But wasn’t she being a bit dismissive? Divorce was nothing to be taken lightly —
“It means that you and I could have a chance again. I’ve never stopped loving you. Even after everything that has happened—and you know it wasn’t my fault!Iwas the victim, you know that, right? And this girl you have, this Jacyn. You can send her back to wherever you found her. Surely you can see that you’d be better off with me. You and me and Willa, we could—”
“Don’t speak about Jacyn like that!” He spoke more sharply than he intended. “She’s not a pound puppy I can just return. She’s my fiancée. It’s time you got that straight.”
“But you and I—”
“You and I ended the minute you chose my brother’s marriage proposal instead of mine.” He was shocked by his own reaction. For years, he’d fantasized about how he’d do if Sofia was ever free again, but now things were different. And as for Jacyn, how had he become so fiercely protective of her?
“Can’t you forgive me for a naïve girl’s mistake? I thought I was doing the right thing.”
He had to get out of here before he said the wrong thing. “I don’t want to discuss this. I’ll take my leave.”
The dark, furious look she threw at him as he walked away brought a line of Shakespeare to mind:Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned.
The topiary animals in the garden greeted him like old friends. This had been a place of calm for him when he was younger, and he instinctively sought it out now. From the moment he entered, he could hear laughter and voices. Willa and Jacyn.
It warmed his heart to know that the two of them had become so close. It was just what Willa needed; the poor kid had been conceived in turmoil, and it seemed like she would face some more. She needed stability. When they spotted him, Willa waved him over.
“We’re planning pranks to play on Martin!” Willa announced gleefully.