Page 57 of The Scandal You Started
“That doesn’t make your argument right either.”
“Perhaps.” They stopped to let a car turn into the lane. “But this is not the lab nor the museum. What does it matter if my paying convinces someone I am your husband?”
Rayna whirled to look up at him so quickly, he could’ve sworn he heard her neck crack. “Husband?”
Dominic very nearly faltered in his step.
Now, why on Neves did she say it like that?
He bristled with a roll of his shoulders. “Yes.Husband. Is that so shocking? I do not believe I would make such a distasteful husband for you to act so horrified.”
She whipped her head away on a breathy laugh. “It is shocking when it’s so far from the bloody truth, Dominic. And only you would be offended by that.”
“Why is it so far from the truth? I would make a good husband. Or do you not think so?”
She opened and closed her mouth wordlessly. “I never said I didn’t think—”
“Have I done something to suggest to you that I would not? I believe I have shown I am trustworthy and respectful. I may not be a handsome beau, but I am wealthy, I am not riddled with disease, and I have all my teeth—”
Her eyes widened. “Why are you getting so upset?”
“I am not upset,” he snapped as they walked through a set of glass doors that slid open by themselves.
H sounded very much like he was upset. Probably because she had, in fact, wounded him. And fighting blindly with the trolley to turn it in the direction Rayna was steering her steps was making him ever more frustrated. Why was the damn thing so difficult to manoeuvre?
“I simply wish to know,” he continued, “what about me has suggested to you that I could not possibly be a good—bloody woods, what the deuces is that?”
Dominic slowed to a stop and gawked aghast at the two moving metal ramps with black bars on either side. One was carrying a few people up, while the other brought a man with a trolley down towards them.
His heart forgot all offenses committed by Rayna as it cowered like a young soldier facing a frightful obstacle.
“Not so bloody loud,” she hissed, urging him forward with a hand on his back. “It’ll be fine—”
“You did not warn me there would be another elevator,” he hissed back, throwing a glare across his shoulder.
“Escalator,” she corrected. “But this isn’t an escalator either.”
“Whatever the damned thing is called. How am I to step on it? There are no stairs. I am bound to fall. This is an accident waiting to happen.”
He’d had a hard time comprehending the moving stairs he’d witnessed in the museum, and Rayna had warned him about them prior to that. Still, actually facing them had been painfully daunting, and that had only been once too. The rest of the time,they’d used the lift box that moved up and down between the floors. But had Rayna not held his wrist in a death grip against her back, forcing him to stride with her, Dominic doubted he would have managed to step onto the moving stairs by himself.
Butthis! This death trap of a ramp was on another scale of stupidity entirely.
“You’ll be fine,” Rayna said with a soft flutter of laughter, shifting behind him and nudging him with firm hands.
“This is not a laughing matter—”
“Walk, Dominic. I’ll stay right behind you.I promise.”
Her gentle vow caressed up the back of his neck, encouraging him to contemplate trusting her over the warning signs his dread was planting in his head.
With a quick glance over his shoulder, he began moving in slow, stilted steps, hoping and cursing that he didn’t fall over and embarrass himself in front of Rayna. With every whispered word she spoke to his back, it became slightly easier to head towards his demise.
“Like I said with the escalator, just step and don’t think too hard about it. Keep hold of the trolley. It’s magnetic, so the wheels will stick to the ramp. And lean forward if you feel like you’re going to tip backwards. But I’m right behind you, Dominic. I won’t let you fall.”
He let her soothing voice wrap around him in a protective blanket and braced it tightly against himself when the front wheels of the trolley clicked in place on the metal floor.
“And…step.”
