Page 31 of Marriage Masquerade

“You must have to have been sure you wouldn’t be deported before then. Don’t you think you could have asked me first?”

He rose with one easy move and walked across the room to her.

Or at least Gemma tried to think of it as walking, though it had the earmarks of a panther stalking his prey. Controlled, smooth, but focused and direct.

She swallowed hard.

Start as you mean to go on, she admonished herself.

“Nikos, if this is going to work at all, we have to come to some kind of understanding. At work, you’re the boss. What you say goes. But this isn’t work. If you want me to consider this my home, then I get some say in things.”

He nodded once, his attention focused on her.

Gemma took a deep breath.

“If you want to do things as a couple, then I need to be given the chance to take part in making plans.”

“These plans were made before we even discussed our marriage.”

“Then I don’t need to go. They obviously were satisfied with you coming alone before. Nothing has to change.”

“Don’t be naïve. Can you imagine the rampant rumors if I show up two days after the wedding without my wife?”

Gemma tried to find a way to make him understand where she was coming from. She’d had years of practice dealing with his high-handed way of working. Surely she could find a satisfactory way to have a harmonious home life for however long the marriage lasted.

“Maybe I have other plans. Maybe—”

“Cancel them,” he said ruthlessly.

She blinked.

“This will not work if you think you can order me around. This isn’t the army, and you’re not my commanding officer.”

“Army? What are you talking about?”

“You. You’re so used to ordering everything you don’t even realize you’re doing it. But not in a relationship with a woman. With me specifically.”

“Do you have other plans?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“That’s not the point. I might have. All I want is for you to see me as a person in my own right—to be asked.”

He took a deep breath, running the fingers of one hand through his hair.

“Gemma, I have an invitation to a party at Sven Johannsen’s on Friday night. Would you do me the honor of attending with me?”

She smiled and nodded. “I’d love to go.”

He frowned. “Are you playing games?”

He stepped closer.

Gemma held her ground.

“No, just establishing ground rules, I guess.”

“I don’t remember having had a lot of complaints from other women I’ve taken out.”

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