Page 34 of Fast-Track Fiancé

‘What is the truth?’ she asked shakily.

‘That I’ve fallen in love with you, Nina,’ he said, his voice rough, and his eyes trained intently upon her. ‘I’ve fallen in love with everything about you and I want this fake engagement to be real. I love your focus, your ambition, your willingness to fight me at every turn... And of course your body and your ability to drive me wild with just a look.’

Nina’s breath caught in her chest; she could hardly believe what she was hearing. ‘But the deal, the rules. Your secrets and lies...’

‘Forget the rules, forget everything. I thought I was doing the right thing all along, but I think I was only trying to fool myself. I realised in the moment I saw you hit that wall, that nothing I felt for you was simple. I think I fell in love with you that night, holding you in my arms while you monologued about your favourite movies. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you about the company, but I can’t go back, Nina...only forwards.’

‘You might think you’re in love with me, but you barely know me. If you did, you’d never have lied to me.’ She shook her head, taking a few steps away. Her heart was hammering in her chest so hard she was surprised she still stood upright but she needed to have this conversation with him. She needed him to understand. ‘You’ve been put under a lot of pressure by your mother to find someone to love. And with your ex getting engaged to your cousin, that had to have hurt you.’

‘This isn’t about any of that.’ He took a step closer, an expression of desperation on his face. ‘Look, I can see now that this was a lot to put on you so suddenly. With Alain here, and after learning what I did, maybe we should wait to talk until later, once you’ve had time to think about it.’

‘No.’ She pulled her hand away from his, and hated the immediate look of hurt in his eyes. ‘Waiting isn’t going to solve any of this, Tristan. We’ve got so tangled up in the haze of the past couple weeks I don’t know which way is up any more. I don’t know what is real and what is fake and what is simply induced by spending time with your wonderful yet slightly dramatic family, who I adore.’

‘They adore you too,’ he said hoarsely.

‘Please, stop. I can’t think straight with you looking at me this way.’

‘Sometimes thinking straight is the least helpful thing we can do. Not everything can be made logical and clear-cut, Nina. Sometimes a person comes storming into your life when you least expect it, bringing parts of you back to life that you didn’t even realise were dead. Let’s do this for real, let’s get married and build a life together.’

Nina closed her eyes, wishing she could trust this. Trust him after what he’d done. He’d just said he loved her. She’d dreamed of hearing those words from his lips. She wished that she could simply take his hands and throw herself into his arms, throw caution to the wind. She could just imagine it now: a big white wedding, his entire family would be overjoyed. The media would love it. A whirlwind romance... Just like the one she’d grown up as a product of.

Her mother had married her father in the eye of a media storm, never as happy as when she was the centre of attention. Every step of their relationship had been scrutinised and followed until her mother had become unrecognisable. Her father had walked away from his marriage and children unscathed, unchanged by the media’s opinion, which had largely been aimed at her socialite mother and her supposed sins. Could she do that? Could she trust that whatever this intense connection with Tristan was, she wouldn’t be swallowed whole by it?

Her aunt Lola’s words rang in her ears.

‘Only trust yourself, Nina.’

‘I can’t,’ she whispered, squeezing her eyes tight as if hoping, if she tried hard enough when she opened them, all of this might have just been a bad dream. But it wasn’t, and she eventually opened her eyes to see Tristan staring at her as if she were a stranger.

‘You can’t?’ Tristan shook his head. ‘Or you won’t?’

‘I struggle with trusting people, Tristan. I didn’t have the same loving family upbringing as you but I know that relationships can be hard to maintain. And if they start out based on lies and deceit—however well meant—what does that say about our future? We’ve only been together for a short time, and most of that was just for show.’

‘It might have started that way, but these past couple of weeks have been real,’ he urged. ‘Just give us a chance.’

‘I can’t.’ She felt her entire body shake from repressing the tears that threated to spill from her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

Tristan wondered how things could go downhill so quickly. For the past two days he’d been hopeful that Nina might understand why he’d done what he’d done, and had been imagining proposing to her all over again. This time for real. But here she looked at him as though he were a stranger. He should have told her about his deal with her brother sooner, he knew that. But he’d signed that NDA in all good faith, and the longer he’d waited, the deeper the lie had become. And now, seeing the hurt on her face, he wished so hard that he’d done everything differently.

No business deal was worth her pain. Nothing was.

‘Even if you had told me the truth right from the start...even if we’d got past all of it, do you really think we would ever have worked as a couple?’ Nina closed her eyes, and his chest tightened as he saw a single tear snake from her eyelid down across her cheek. She had never cried in front of him, he realised. She held herself together so tightly, never showing weakness, rarely allowing anybody a glimpse underneath the surface armour to the tender vulnerability beneath.

But over the past few weeks he had slowly dug beneath that armour. She’d let him in, damn it—and look how he’d rewarded her trust. Not for the first time since they’d met, he felt like the world’s biggest bastard and he reached up with a shaky hand to brush away her tears. She let him touch her, but he knew by the stiffness in her shoulders that it was not an indication of forgiveness. She had told him she struggled to trust, had she not? She had cut people out of her life for far less than this. She burned bridges because it was easier than allowing people a second chance to screw her over again.

‘Tell me how to make this right,’ he growled, refusing to admit that he had irretrievably broken whatever fragile thing had begun to blossom between them. Refusing to give up on them, even if she was already fading away from his grasp before his eyes.

The silence that stretched between them felt as if it went on for hours, every second ticking down like grains of sand. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely a murmur and her eyes were far away.

‘Tristan, this would never have worked out anyway. It was only ever meant to be temporary. Maybe this is what I needed to hear today, to stop feeling this foolish hope.’

‘Hope is good,’ he rasped, holding himself still as she pulled free from his arms.

‘Sometimes hope is just prolonging the pain of something that was always inevitable. We’re so different. You’re handsome, outgoing and charismatic and I’m...a plain workaholic ice queen.’

She raised her hand to silence him when he immediately rushed to deny her words.

‘It’s taken me a long time, but I like who I am. I like being obsessed with fast cars and metrics and studying engines until my eyeballs hurt. I like the danger too, Tristan. None of us would be in this career if it didn’t give us a thrill. You can barely stand the thought of my job. You flinch every time I mention getting behind the wheel again. Your fears are real and so valid and I feel like—’

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