‘You sound about as thrilled as I feel,’ she whispered, tears sparkling on her lashes. After several beats of silence, she shook her head forlornly and said, ‘God, what a mess.’
He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t. He sure as hell couldn’t contradict her. This was a royal mess and of their making. He wanted to be gentle with her, to sympathise with her predicament, but whenever a tendency like that came to him, he quashed it.
She had known about this pregnancy for six damned weeks. Six weeks in which she’d contemplated telling him and dismissed the idea. For his sake. Six weeks in which she’d made the cold, calculated decision that he wouldn’t be a part of his babies’ lives, until it suited her. Weeks and weeks in which she’d decided, every day, that she would deny their babies their birthright and run far away from him.
How dared she?
How dared she think she had any right to do that? And after her own childhood and the absence of her father! Sure, she had said she planned to tell Octavio at some point, but he had only her word for that. What if she’d gone back to New Zealand, met someone else and decided it was just easier to raise the babies with them?
Every iteration made him seethe, and worse was the fact this had all come about by happenstance. If he hadn’t gone to the hospital today, he would probably never have seen her again. And he couldn’t live with that possibility. It wasn’t about Phoebe, but the twins she carried, the babies that he had every right to know and raise as his own children, to raise as his heirs.
He wouldn’t forgive her for what she’d almost taken from him, and he doubted he’d ever trust her.
But even when he felt like that, he still hated seeing her suffer. He hated knowing he was the cause of her pain, and he hated knowing that they would never recover from this. He could never forgive her for planning to keep the babies a secret fromhim, and she would never forgive him for strong-arming her into this marriage.
Their chemistry was as palpable as ever. Desire was whipping him, practically forcing him to reach for her, to obliterate her anxiety the only way he knew how: kiss by kiss by kiss…
‘You seriously mean for us to share a room?’ Her voice was unnaturally high-pitched, but she couldn’t quell it.
‘You’re expecting me to believe that’s a problem?’
‘Yes, it’s a problem! God, Octavio, we’re not a couple!’ She lowered her voice to a whisper, even though they were alone. ‘We don’t like each other, we’re sure as hell not sleeping together.’
He arched a dark brow and her irritation grew.
‘You can’t expect me to find you attractive after the day we’ve had?’
His laugh was soft and throaty. ‘Careful,querida.You know how I like to react when you bait me with obvious lies.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘I amnotlying, you…you…’ But she floundered, trying to find the perfect way to describe him. ‘I am so mad at you.’
‘Be that as it may, tomorrow our engagement will be announced to the world. You had better get used to the fact this marriage is happening.’
‘This marriage is happening for the sake of the twins, nothing more,’ she hissed. ‘Behind closed doors, I’d prefer to forget you exist.’
His smirk made her fingers itch to slap him, and she’d never done that in her life. He stepped closer, but didn’t touch her—and it was only then that she realised how badly she wanted him to touch her, regardless of what she was saying. Damn her body for its treacherous reactions to him!
‘Let me know how you go with that, won’t you?’
‘You are unbelievably arrogant.’
‘Not arrogant,’ he corrected, the humour slipping from his tone. ‘Honest. I am furious with you, Phoebe. Angrier, perhaps, than I’ve ever been with another person, and that’s saying something. But I still want you. I’m not afraid of accepting that reality—when you’re ready to do the same, I’ll be here.’
She glared at him, her nostrils flaring as she expelled an angry breath. ‘I guess that leaves me to go find a guest room,’ she threw at him, before turning and stomping down the corridor of his incredibly luxurious apartment.
‘Stop.’ His voice arrested her in her tracks. ‘There is no guest room.’
She whirled around to face him. ‘What?’
‘This is my apartment. I have a study, a gym and a bedroom. Why would I want a guest room?’
She floundered. ‘Then in the palace…’
‘Yes, there are many bedrooms in the palace, but that’s not appropriate.’
Her jaw dropped.
‘We are pretending to be in a whirlwind love affair, so madly passionate that we became engaged only months after meeting. I cannot have the veracity of that questioned.’
