Page 75 of The Princess Trap
When he didn’t respond, she reached out to touch him, to soothe him. He flinched away as if she were on fire.
The movement, tiny as it was, felt like a punch in the face. Cherry let her hand drop, her heart falling with it. Then she hardened her jaw and lifted her chin and turned away. She needed some clothes. Immediately.
“Wait, Cherry—I’m sorry.” His voice sounded like an echo of itself, weak and carried by those anxious, dragged-in breaths. “I’m sorry. I just—”
“What the fuck?” she demanded, whirling around to face him, her temper appearing out of nowhere. “So it broke. Why are you so…” She gestured helplessly at his face, twisted in misery, the sheen of sweat on his brow. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He frowned as if she’d spoken another language. “What do you mean?”
“Do you…havesomething?”
It took him a second to figure out what she was talking about. “Jesus, no. I would’ve told you. I mean, I would’ve—”
“Do you thinkIhave something?”
“No,” he said, his voice firmer, closer to its usual self. He reached out to grab her wrist, but she jerked away. Because she couldn’t erase the look on his face, the way he’d avoided her touch. As if he were disgusted. “Cherry,” he said, and now he had the fucking nerve to look upset. “It’s nothing to do with you. I just… I can’t get you pregnant.”
Oh, Christ. Where the fuck were her clothes?
She stormed around the sofa and found her damned Dolly Parton T-shirt lying by a bookshelf. Her underwear was a lost cause, but the T-shirt was just long enough to cover the important parts… if she tugged down the hem and held it there with one hand. Which wasexactlyhow she wanted to continue this conversation. Great. Fucking great.
“Cherry,” he sighed, as if she were being unreasonable. “You have to understand—I mean, what would we do? If there was a baby? We couldn’t just separate. I’d have to—”
“You’d have to marry me,” she finished. “God for-fucking-bid.” And where the hell had that come from? She didn’t want to marry him anyway. This was a business deal. A contractual agreement. But it was her fault for allowing lines to be blurred, for getting carried away. She should’ve used her new-found riches to invest in a better vibrator instead.
“No,” Ruben insisted. “That’s not what I meant. I was goingto say I’d have to… I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.” His tone became gentle, apologetic, as if he were breaking her goddamn heart when he said, “I can’t handle kids, Cherry.”
“No-one was asking you to,” she snapped. “I’m on the pill, by the way. So don’t worry. Nothing will get in the way of you dropping me once our time is up.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said again, and now he sounded angry.Him! Angry! She’d laugh at his fucking audacity if she weren’t so bloody furious. “I panicked,” he gritted out. “It was a reflex. And I’m sorry. I’ve never… I’ve never been in this position before.”
“Right,” she said, giving him her sweetest smile, her most reasonable tone. “Because I fake engagements with foreign fucking royalty every other week.”
“I’m not talking about the engagement. I’m talking about…” He gestured wildly between them, something bright and dangerous and uncontrolled in his eyes. “This! Us!”
“Us?” She forced herself to laugh, as if she was truly amused. As if she hadn’t a care in the world. “You sound like a child, Ruben. We had sex. That doesn’t mean there’s anus.”
His jaw tightened. “Don’t fucking do that.”
“Oh, is that an order?”
“Cherry.”
“Ruben. Let me make something clear: I am not here to trap you. In fact,youtrappedme. And it may be news to you that not every woman on earth wants to carry your royal fucking babies—”
“Cherry—”
“But they don’t! Okay?Idon’t! What do you think I am, desperate? Like I’d chase a man who doesn’t want me?”
He ran a hand through his hair, his expression almost helpless. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she said. “Because I’m not doing this again. Not with you. Clearly we need to keep things as uncomplicated as possible. But it’ll be a long fucking year without some dick to pass the time.”
He flinched as if she’d hit him. But he didn’t stop her as she marched past him and out into the hall.
And Cherry almost convinced herself that she didn’t care.
Chapter Twenty-Four
