Her eyes narrowed. “Am I?” She tossed back the sheets and stood, crossing the room in measured steps. He tried to keep his gaze on her face and off the swells of her breasts, the nip of her waist, the curve of her thighs. Tried not to remember how perfectly she’d fit into his arms, how she’d made love to him with a trust and wild abandon he’d never experienced with any other lover.
“Your actions have spoken quite clearly in recent days.”
“How so?”
“Spending time with me. Defending me in front of my father. Standing up for me to the paparazzi. Making love to me.”
“Protecting my investment,” he replied cruelly.
She stopped a mere foot away. Her sweet scent slid over his skin, sending a cascade of images through his head. Briony in her magnificent gown talking with a man just trying to survive. Briony refusing to back down in the face of the photographer. Briony standing up for the people of a country she hadn’t even known existed a month ago. Briony, naked and shimmering beneath him as she cried out his name.
The ache of guilt was crushed beneath the weight of what he was about to do. What he had to do, he reminded himself as he summoned all of his strength. He couldn’t give Briony what she wanted, what she deserved. She might consider herself in love with him now. But it wouldn’t last when he couldn’t return her affections. Their union would slowly dissolve from a respectful partnership to a prison of heartbreak and sorrow.
Briony had experienced enough of both to last a lifetime.
“How you held me just now,” she whispered as she brought one hand up to touch his face.
He caught her wrist in an iron grasp.
“Briony, I used you. I’ve known for years how wretched Daxon is. I knew if I told you the truth, you’d never agree to the marriage contract.”
“Why are you pushing me away?” she whispered.
“Because you love me and I don’t love you.”
The words had barely escaped before he longed to reach out and yank them back. Something felt wrong as he uttered them, a sense of imbalance deep in his soul.
Because you’re a selfish bastard and you don’t want to lose her.
Compassion and mercy blazed in her eyes, so strong and beautiful it almost hurt to look at her.
“Why can’t you love me?” she asked softly.
“I’ve told you.” He sounded ragged, torn up. The severity of his tone should have pushed her away, but damn it, she didn’t back down.
“Yes, you have. Because of your aunt and your father. But you’re not either of them, Cass.”
She tugged her wrist free, and weakling that he was, he let her hand rest on his face, couldn’t prevent the harsh exhale that escaped. Her palm warmed his skin, a simple touch but far more intimate than any liaison he’d ever experienced.
“I think your aunt and your father are just excuses.”
His head snapped back, and he stepped out of her reach.
“Excuses?”
She threw back her shoulders, the confident woman he’d first fallen for in the bar standing in full force before him.
“I can’t imagine experiencing what you did. But I think you’re scared to be vulnerable. I think you use your aunt and father as a shield so you don’t have to risk being hurt.”
“Or I don’t want to love you.”
Silence fell. Even the crackling of the fireplace faded, overrun by the roaring in his ears that drowned out everything.
The words weren’t entirely false. But they didn’t tell the whole story. He didn’t want to love Briony. But if he let himself, he would love her as he had never loved anyone, with his whole body and soul.
Briony was right. It wasn’t just his father’s and aunt’s doomed relationships that held him back. It was a volatile mix of his own cowardice, guilt and a fear that he wasn’t the man Briony deserved.
Briony’s face shuttered, her eyes going blank. He was doing the right thing. Trapping her in a loveless marriage would be liking trapping a wild bird in a cage and watching it beats its wings against the bars day after day.