Page 79 of Friends Who Fake It

“You told me you’d call me as soon as you could, but you didn’t leave me with a way to contact you.” She wrapped her arms around the torso, not cold because of the winter’s day so much as the memories that were pushing into her mind. “It was very easy for me to believe that you had meant to walk right out of my life.”

“Even if that were so,” he said, frustration at his inability to recall the details and therefore defend himself colouring his tone. “A pregnancy changed everything.”

“Did it? How did I know I was the first woman you’d got pregnant? How do you?” She responded, turning around and lifting her brow expressively. “It’s possible that I’m one of several.”

He swore under his breath. “That’s not the case.”

“How do youknow?” She demanded. “You don’t remember anything.”

“Irememberyou.” He contradicted, coming around to the side of the bench and then crossing the distance to her. And then he shook his head, the thought he was trying to express making no rational sense. “And I know I always use protection. It’s innate to me. I cannot believe I wouldn’t have with you.” His eyes narrowed. “Unless you told me you were on birth control? Or somehow manipulated me into believing we were safe not to take precautions?”

Her jaw dropped in disgust and surprise. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“What? Is that so implausible?”

“You’re trying to blame me?” She hissed, her head shaking so that her dark hair shifted around her shoulders.

“I don’t remember the details of the weekend we shared,” he said with a shrug, apparently unaffected by her offense. “It seems as likely as not, to me.”

“You’re unbelievable,” she said, jerking her head away.

“You’re saying we used protection?”

“Yes! We used protection!” She turned back to the window, the park across the street fading as the past overtook her mind. “Youwerepedantic about it and I was glad. It showed respect for me, respect for everything we’d talked about me wanting in my life.” She frowned and a little line formed between her brows. “I didn’t always remember, but you did.”

He expelled a long, soft breath from behind her. “So it was just an accident.”

“Yes.”

“Highly unlikely then that I have more children out there.”

“Not impossible though,” she couldn’t resist taunting him, even when she knew she was digging the knife in just for the sake of it. Because he was right – his use of protection had been ingrained.

“What would you like me to do, Elizabeth? Take an advertisement out in all the English newspapers?”

“And the Spanish too,” she agreed with brittle condemnation. “I have no doubt you had women everywhere you went.”

“Stop right there,” he spoke the words with grim determination. “Do you know for certain that there were other mistresses besides you?”

She swallowed, refusing to look at him. It was one of the things she’d told herself, again and again, to justify her decision. If she’d been one in a string of mistresses, it somehow made his claim on Joshua even more tenuous.

“No,” she shook her head. “But I believe it very likely.”

“I don’t.” He swallowed, a muscle jerking in his jaw with the anguished movement. “I can’t remember what happened between us but I know certain things about myself. Like I saw you and knew you, and like I knew I would have used protection when we were together. I know that cheating is utterly abhorrent to me. That I did so once makes no sense and yet it’s obviously true. All I can think is thatyouwere different. That there was something about you that made me forget, for a weekend, that I am a man of honour and integrity.” She sucked in a harsh breath as pain filtered through her, his words unconsciously hurtful for the way they segregated her into the ‘aberration’ column of his life’s ledger.

“It makes sense as to why I left you with no way to contact me,” he continued, his lips a grim gash in his face. “I believe I felt guilty at what I’d done, guilty at how I’d wanted you. I believe I regretted our time together and thought to run from that. I believe I intended to walk out of your life, Elizabeth, and never see you again.”

She swept her eyes shut but tears formed behind the lids, and she turned away from him, walking into the kitchen and flicking the kettle on out of habit. Itdidmake sense. She’d reached that same conclusion herself, time and time again.

“I do not cheat,” he said darkly, firmly, as if the mantra could undo the stitch of regret that their relationship had caused him. “And I will be faithful to you when we are married, Elizabeth. I promise you that.”

ChapterFive

“I’m not going to marry you!” She snarled, the very idea filling her with wet cement and panic. “You’re out of your damned mind.”

He eyed her with icy derision and she imagined for a moment what it would be like to sit opposite a man like Xavier Salbatore in a professional setting. What might it be like to be one of his minions, working for him, and incurring his wroth?

“Fine,” he surprised her by conceding a few tense seconds later. “That is your choice.”

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