Page 46 of Marriage Bargain with His Innocent
CHAPTER NINE
‘I’VEBEENTHINKING...’ Georgina didn’t look at Matias as she said that. She busied herself sweeping up the suit jacket he had discarded on the kitchen counter and the tie which he had dropped to the ground. The jacket would have cost what most people might earn in six months, and the tie was the softest of silk.
She had discovered that Matias treated his clothes with the casual disregard of someone who knew that he could snap his fingers and replace the lot at a moment’s notice. However, it went against the grain for Georgina to accept this cavalier indifference to possessions that cost the earth.
‘You’ve been thinking...?’ Matias drawled, sitting on a kitchen chair and swivelling it so that he could stretch his long legs out in front of him.
Summer had abruptly turned into a rainy, bleak autumn, and outside the relentlessly blue skies had become a thing of the past. Now, a fine, persistent drizzle was drumming against the window panes. Nothing like the savage downpour that had accompanied that very first time they had made love, but weedy and insistent and never-ending.
Something smelled good. Georgina not only photographed food but had also proved herself to be more than competent when faced with cooking it.
‘You’re doing an awful lot of travelling to and from here.’ She leaned against the counter and looked at him with clear, level green eyes. ‘I’ve had a lot of interest after my last shoot—from people in London and a publishing house in France, of all places. I feel that it might further my career if I moved to London.’
She could have added that the frequency of his visits to Cornwall was no longer strictly necessary. It was over a month since Rose had had her operation, and she was now back on her feet and wondering why on earth Georgina wasn’t thinking about moving to London.
‘After all,’ Rose had pointed out, ‘it’s not as though Matias is ever going to contemplate moving down here full time, and commuting can’t be a long-term proposition. I’m back to rights, and if I’m going to be moving into something smaller in the village I shall feel quite capable of being on my own. You two need to think about what’s going to work for you...’
Georgina thought uneasily about the engagement that had only been put in place as a temporary measure. She’d held off telling her parents, because she knew that involving more people than strictly necessary—especially her parents—would be to start hurtling down a dangerous slope, but the fact of the matter was that she and Matias were lovers, and still no mention had been made of timelines.
That being the case, this didn’t seem too dramatic a step forward. Did it...?
‘Is my mother behind this sudden decision?’
Something in his voice made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and something in those cool dark eyes was setting alarm bells ringing in her head. However, having put one foot on this road, she now felt obliged to carry on.
‘Shehasbeen wondering why you’re continuing to commute. I know you spend a couple of days a week down here, but the rest of the time you’re up and down, and she thinks it’s weird for a newly engaged couple not to be trying to find a solution so that they can be together a bit more.’
‘Is that a fact...?’
Matias stood up and strolled to the window to stare silently outside for a few seconds before turning back to look at her. His expression was shuttered, unreadable.
‘I wouldn’t normally consider moving as an option but, like I said, I’ve had a lot of interest from two companies in London and one in France. The Paris one is obviously... You know... Actually, they want to set up a meeting with me...’
She knew that she was stammering and her voice tapered off into a lengthening silence as he continued to look at her for a while without saying anything. Georgina recalled the knotted stomach she had had when she had first gone to his house to tell him of her hare-brained idea to rescue his mother from her downward spiral of depression.
The knotted stomach was there again.
‘It’s not what you want to hear?’ she said flatly.
Matias inclined his head to one side. ‘No,’ he returned. ‘It’s not.’
‘Why not?’ Georgina asked bluntly.
‘The fact is, I’ve been doing some thinking of my own.’
He glanced across to where a pot was simmering on the stove, to the bottle of wine on the kitchen table, to the jacket and tie which had been neatly tidied away—all trappings of a domesticity he had always shunned.
‘My mother is back on her feet. The operation was a success, as I knew it would be. She’s now strong enough, in my opinion, to deal with the fact that there isn’t going to be any walk down the aisle.’
His fabulous eyes were the colour of wintry seas and his expression was remote—the expression of someone retreating and walking away.
‘Ofcoursethere’s not going to be a walk down the aisle.’ She felt sick, dizzy, and she was sure that it showed on her face because she could feel her colour draining away. ‘That’s not what this suggestion is about. Yes, it makes sense if this engagement is going to continue, but also I really have a chance of developing my career if I move out of Cornwall.’
‘This is my fault,’ Matias breathed with self-condemnation.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t you, Georgie?’
