Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [56]
‘Are you usually so suspicious?’
‘Only with you.’ She looked at him levelly, knowing that she would have to make him understand, somehow, that she was not available, and that persistence was not going to pay off eventually, which was the illusion he appeared to be harbouring.
‘Thank you for making me feel so special. Can’t you control that tendency of yours for honesty just a little bit?’ He strolled across to the window and stared outside, his back to her.
Go away, she wanted to scream. Leave me alone with my problems! I’m having your baby and I’m scared to death and your being here just makes everything worse!
‘It isn’t going to work,’ she said bluntly, ignoring his gibe.
‘You’re attracted to me,’ he rasped, turning around to look at her, semi-perched on the window-ledge.
‘It was a mistake,’ Natalie pleaded. ‘I know I was attracted to you, but I’m not like that. I don’t want to have an affair with you.’
‘Well, then marry me,’ he said carelessly.
Natalie looked at him, stunned. ‘What?’
‘Marry me.’ He shrugged.
‘You don’t believe in marriage. You told me.’ She un-consciously rested the flat of her hand on her stomach and momentarily lost herself in the fantasy of being Kane Marshall’s wife.
He lowered his eyes so that she couldn’t read the expression on his face. ‘Perhaps it’s inescapable.’ His head snapped up and he glared at her. ‘Aren’t you flattered that I’m willing to take that step just to get you into my bed?’
‘And aren’t you relieved when I tell you that I would never even consider it?’
‘Why not?’ he asked aggressively, walking towards her. ‘You once gave me a great long lecture on the importance of marriage and commitment. So I’m offering it to you. It’ s the most any woman’s ever got out of me.’
Things were so black and white with him, Natalie thought. Did he really imagine for a moment that she would marry him simply to satiate his lust? And what about when he got bored with her? Divorce? Or maybe he would just tuck her away in his country house and pick up the threads of his other women in London.
And what about the baby? He might let her go, but he would never let his child go. That was something she knew instinctively. And then, if she did marry him, would he jump to the conclusion that she had got herself pregnant on purpose and forced him into a back-handed marriage by holding out on sexual favours?
It was a sickening thought and she had no intention of letting it even cross his mind.
‘Thank you for the proposal of marriage,’ she said stiffly, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t oblige.’
‘For God’s sake, woman, what the hell else do you want?’ he thundered furiously. Dented pride, she thought, what rage it inspired.
‘I don’t want anything from you. Can’t you under-stand that?’
‘No.’ He gave her an angry, bewildered look.
Natalie said with a catch in her voice, ‘When I was young, and I imagined being proposed to, I always thought that there would be a touch of romance about it.’ She was thinking her thoughts out loud rather then levelling a criticism, but he immediately rushed to his defence.
‘Are you saying that you want more romance? I’ll give you flowers,’ he muttered darkly. ‘You just never struck me as the sentimental sort.’
‘I’m sorry. It’ s no good.’
‘Fine.’ He stood up and that hurt pride had trans-formed itself into coldness. ‘I don’t intend to beg.’
‘I didn’t think that I had asked you to.’ If only she could say something trite, like, Couldn’t we please still remain friends? But she knew that that would not have been acceptable to him, and if it had been it would be a disaster anyway. So she hung her head and stared in fascination at her fingers.
He walked across to the door and paused with his hand on the doorknob.
‘I hope that poor sucker knows what he’s letting himself in for,’ he snarled. ‘Does he know that you intend to twist him round your little finger?’
That stung. He made her sound like a dragon.
‘I don’t intend to do any such thing,’ she retaliated, her anger beginning