Page 42 of A Bed of Broken Promises

Hope flickered briefly in her gut, but it was quickly extinguished. She shook her head sadly. “I don’t believe you.”

“I’m not lying to you.” He grimaced awkwardly. “I wanted to. After I left here, I wanted nothing more than to get you out of my head, the only way I knew how. I went to bars, I picked up women, but when it came to the crunch, well…” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to be with anyone else.”

She couldn’t help the sob that escaped from her. “But if I hadn’t shown up when I did, no doubt the lovely Cherie would have twisted your arm…”

“No. We would have passed out. You saw me. Do you really think I was in any state to make love to a woman?”

“Stop!” She held up a hand. “Do you understand that I don’t want to hear about you and other women?”

“Because you still care about me?”

“Because I thought I cared about you.”

“Everything we shared was real, Katie. What the hell difference does my name make?”

“It’s not just your name and you know it. You used me! You used what I felt for you to get me to sell Wadeford House to you.”

He slammed his fist against the back of the sofa. “Think about it logically. I am a rich man. Why would I seduce you just to buy this crummy house?” He winced. “I’m sorry, but you must admit, it seems a bit fanciful.”

She bit down on her lip. “Not to me it doesn’t. It makes perfect sense.”

He closed his eyes. He opened his mouth to say the most important thing he’d ever said in his whole life, but before he could even mouth the first word, there was another knock at the door.

“Oh, shoot,” she swore, running her hands through her hair to return a semblance of order. She shot him a fulminating glare as she crossed the room and pulled the door open again.

“Hey babes. Woah, you look positively gor-geous.” Ryan observed with a low whistle. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he winked, cheekily. Katie was not in the mood.

“You have a date?” Marcus’s voice was devoid of any emotion, and yet when she turned to him, he thought she almost looked guilty.

“So what if I do? Did you think I’d put my life on hold indefinitely while you whored your way around England?”

He recoiled at her words. The other man was one of those film-star good looking guys. Blonde hair, tanned skin, blue eyes, muscular, dressed like the missing member of a popular boy band, and shiny shoes and trendily torn jeans. Marcus couldn’t help smirking, and Katie, looking at him now, could see why. Where Marcus was six feet four of all-man strength and maturity, Ryan looked a little childish in comparison. But Ryan was just a friend, after all, and she felt a tug of loyalty to him.

“I trust you’ll be gone by the time I return?”

“Do you?”

“You’d better be.” Her eyes flashed with pained warning, and he knew it was her self-preservation talking. That she was terrified by what was happening between them, and what she thought him capable of.

Ryan had the good sense to stay quiet in the argument he didn’t understand at all.

“If you think I’m leaving it at that, you’ve got another thing coming. Besides, I’m here for a few days, working on the golf course.”

“You don’t think you’re going to be staying here, surely?”

“No.”

“Then for God’s sake, get out and don’t bother me again.” She looked up at Ryan, but all pleasure she’d anticipated in the night had been sucked out of her. Ryan put an arm around her shoulders, noting how she shook like a trembling little leaf, as he pulled the door shut behind them.

“Friend of yours?” He said, a moment later, as his car coasted up the hill towards the town.

She grimaced. “You could say that.”

“I always thought you weren’t interested in dating. Now I see it was just me.”

She put a hand on his knee. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I wish it had been you. As you can see, Marcus is a first rate jerk. I wish I didn’t love him, but you can’t help stuff like that, can you?”

“You do love him?”

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