Page 36 of Provoked

My cell rings right as I make a sharp turn by the door. I rush over and almost miss it because Justin is actually calling me back?

“H-h-hello?” I quaver, as if I didn’t have an entire speech ready five minutes ago.

Justin sighs in my ear. “Stop panicking, Ingrid. Just stay put in Washington until this blows over. Understand me? The best thing you can do to help is to stay out of the way.”

I grind my teeth. I don’t believe him. “No.”

“No?” he half laughs in disbelief. “Ingrid. The paparazzi would tear you to shreds and I don’t mean that figuratively. Please stay where you are.”

“I’m not going to let her destroy you like this, Justin. Particularly when she’s trying to use me to do it!” I spit out.

He sighs again. “We both know nothing happened, sweetness. That’s what truly matters. Don’t let it get to you.”

Too late. “What are you going to do?” Might as well discover if he has any better plans up his sleeve before I start formulating my own.

“I don’t know yet. At the moment, this is all salacious innuendo. And it would be hard to sue her for malicious defamation when she’s out of the country and apparently not planning on returning.”

“Can’t you go after the network? Or whoever is paying her?”

I can practically hear his shrug over the phone. “Maybe, but it would be long odds. Particularly if the contract doesn’t specify what she’s supposed to say. It’s better for now not to add to the furor. In six months or so we can file quietly for a divorce and since you’ve made your opinion of New York abundantly clear, probably nobody will be the wiser and it will all blow over.”

My heart falls into my stomach, and I sink slowly onto the bed. He wants a divorce? Or is he just giving up on any chance of an us? My intuition says it’s the latter. He’s not going to fight. Not for himself and not for me. Only to protect my interests, which he sees as me being better off without him nearby. I straighten my spine.

“No Justin. Just no. I’m not divorcing you and I’m not letting you martyr yourself.” And for the first time ever, I hang up on him. And this time, I’m the one ignoring his forthcoming calls. Eventually I slide my phone under my underwear in my suitcase so I don’t have to listen to the angry buzzing after I turned off the ringtone. He is so infuriating!

I go back to pacing while I wrack my brains for a solution. Anything really that will break the status quo.

My brain refuses to cooperate and when a cramp starts in my calf muscle, I flop down onto the bed in despair. The book stuffed under my pillow makes its presence known when my head lands there. I fish it out. I’m not in the mood for romance, but maybe there’s a solution buried in the storyline somewhere. I scan the words hopefully and with desperation.

Rafe strode across the lower fields with authority. He was determined to get as far away from the house and Kitty as humanly possible. Maybe then his brain would re-engage and he could come up with a plan to get them out of this mess.

A part of him sunk at the very thought. He was rather enjoying teasing Kitty, getting her riled up and blushing. But less so when she turned the tables on him. Although he was forced to acknowledge he wasn’t bored. Something he’d been complaining about to his close friends with ever more frequency.

His fists clenched spontaneously with a possessive jealousy at the thought of introducing Kitty to his friends. At some point, he would have to. And while he enjoyed their company, the thought of any of them, even his oldest friend Carmichael, flirting with her, made hisblood boil. And yet he knew that in their circles, after a few heirs were obtained, it would be perfectly normal for a man’s friends to, er um, form their own opinions as it were. Not his Kitty! She was his. No man would ever join her in her bed except him, and that was final.

He swiveled abruptly to return to the house and inform her of this, and then stopped dead in his tracks. He was acting like a lovesick fool.

Rafe began walking again, more slowly this time, still in the direction of the small manor house. He realized that his thoughts were just as radical and outlandish as Kitty’s words had been two days ago. And they weren’t nearly as in conflict as he’d previously believed. The last thing he wanted was a coolly sophisticated duchess who would sleep with all his friends while he trolled their wives in turn. He wanted Kitty and nobody but Kitty and he’d be damned if she was going to have anyone else but him whether she wanted it that way or not.

“Kitty!” he growled loudly as soon as he entered the small foyer of the house. “My study. Now!” He didn’t wait for a response, simply stalked down the hall towards the door to the room the housekeeper referred to as the library, but since it only held about ten old books, Rafe preferred a more generic term. He stood at the window, his hands clenched behind his back while he waited.

“You rang?” Kitty announced her presence with dry humor. He swiveled to take her in. She didn’t look nearly as disheveled as he felt.

“Have a seat,” he finally said, more gently indicating the lone armchair in the corner.

Kitty blinked and then gingerly sat on the edge of the chair as if braced for escape.

“I don’t want you sleeping with any of my friends,” he grumbled.

Kitty’s lips twitched. “We have that in common, then. I don’t want to sleep with any of them either.”

Rafe glared at her. Kitty bit her lower lip and stayed silent.

“What I’m trying to say is that I won’t allow you to…” he paused and took a deep breath. “Your lower class leanings may have rubbed off on me,” he mumbled. But Kitty had clearly heard him because her eyes widened. She wisely held back any commentary.

“And consequently, I’m willing to entertain your earlier request to educate you in the art of pleasure, but only on one condition.”

He waited impatiently for his words to sink in. His heart fell slightly when Kitty’s face filled with trepidation instead of the victory he’d anticipated. The silence between them lengthened. Until Kitty sucked in a breath and finally inquired, “What condition, my lord?”

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