Page 32 of His Wedding Day Revenge

Her eyes narrowed and her chin-tilted pugnacity made him think of a small, cute dog that thought it was large and dangerous—not that she yapped, even when angry. He’d always liked her voice, the softness underlaid with a sexy hint of huskiness that grew more pronounced when she was aroused.

‘I lied. I wanted to bag a billionaire!’

A heavy silence followed her words. ‘Clearly not enough.’

Jane shed her antagonism like a second skin. She knew how it must have hurt a proud man like Draco to be left at the altar. ‘I hadn’t met Rob...anyone,’ she said, still genuinely bewildered by that accusation. ‘Why would you say that?’

‘You have a child, you have lost weight, you look like a shadow, you are grieving...’ he ground out. ‘This much is obvious. It is obvious to your community, which is clearly protective of you. Are you trying to tell me this man had nothing to do with why you dumped me so publicly?’ He bit down hard on further emotional incoherent revelations escaping his clamped lips.

Bit late, Draco, mocked the ironic voice in his head.

You can’t have it both ways, he thought. Tell yourself you had a lucky escape and you have moved on—he had so many meaningless notches in his bedpost to prove it—and then come across as some sort of victim, unable to move on.

Jane was so astonished by his uncharacteristic outburst that it took her several moments to follow through the processes that had brought him to this conclusion.

Here it was again, another opportunity, red lights flashing, to set the record straight, to correct the facts, to admit she was not a mother.

That she had never loved anyone but him.

She knew that she was a coward, she despised herself for taking shelter in a misconception, but where was the harm? she asked her guilty conscience.

She’d hurt him and he’d survived. At least this way she got to keep her secret, hug it to herself and know she had done the right thing. She deserved some privacy. This was her own private tragedy.

She laughed, and she didn’t know why, and saw his face darken.

He looked as if he wanted to throttle her and actually she couldn’t blame him. Then she thought about the stream of beautiful women who he had had sex with... Good Lord, she had been on the brink of feeling sorry for him. How insane was that?

‘I should have done it privately,’ she admitted. ‘And for that I apologise.’

‘But you don’t regret it.’

Calmness settled over her as she saw babies with dark hair and beautiful dark eyes. ‘Not for one second. We had great sex, Draco, but to spend a lifetime together...you know what a bad fit I was.’

The irony was he had, and it hadn’t mattered. His desire for her, the elemental fire she lit in his blood, had bypassed logic.

‘I... I have to get back to Mattie,’ she said, desperate to escape before she cried. She turned and ran back towards the lights.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘SORRYIWASso long.’

The young woman uncurled her legs and stood up from the sofa she had been ensconced in. ‘You weren’t, and Mattie has not made a sound. He is fast asleep. You have eaten? You didn’t get lost?’

Jane struggled to smile back. ‘Your directions were excellent.’ It was her instincts that were not at all excellent. Her instincts were all wrong. ‘I think I will just make myself a tea and go to bed,’ she said, feigning a realistic yawn.

An hour and two teas later her yawn was real, but her mind was still painfully active.

This had been a massive mistake. The only question was should she cut her losses now or see it out to the grim end?

She changed into a nightdress and looked at the bed but didn’t climb in. The idea of lying there tossing and turning was not a tempting proposition. Instead she did another tour of the nursery suite, looking inside the playroom for the first time.

It really was magical, she decided as she opened one of the cupboards at the end to reveal floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with games and toys. Wandering over to the twin cupboard beside it, she noticed this one had a key. She turned it and these doors folded back to reveal, not shelves of toys, but a bathroom twice the size of the one she’d used earlier with twin sinks, a massive copper bath and a shower cubicle still emitting a cloud of steam into the atmosphere.

She wasn’t looking at the impressive fitments but at the man who was standing stark naked and wet in the middle of the room.

Draco, his face hawkish, the skin drawn tight against the perfect bones, returned her stare with one that glittered with bold challenge. A small, dangerous smile played around his sensual lips, his dark olive skin gleaming gold, the moisture clinging to the dusting of body hair, his long eyelashes.

Her eyes dropped. She couldn’t help herself—he was so beautiful, like a statue brought to warm, vibrant life. There was not an ounce of excess flesh on his lean frame to hide the perfect definition of each muscle.

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