Page 31 of Her Diamond Deal with the CEO

His hands curled at his sides and he was on the verge of telling her that he hadn’t meant what he’d said and that he regretted saying it, but then he came to his senses. ‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’

She nodded, and he was already backing away from her when she spoke.

‘Goodnight. And thank you...’ She hesitated as he looked over at her and he could see her pulse jerking in her throat. ‘Thank you for staying with me. It was kind of you.’

She was thanking him? His chin jerked up and as his eyes met hers, he saw a confusion that matched his own as if she couldn’t quite believe what she had just said.

He shrugged. ‘I’m glad I could be of some help.’ And strangely, he was.

For a moment, they stared at one another in silence separated by a few feet of Persian carpet and then he said quickly, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Except it was already tomorrow, he thought, as he finally got back into bed. Outside the darkness was fading away. Now everything looked grey. The colour of compromise.

The C-word.

His mouth twisted. Compromise was not normally part of his vocabulary. Or his life. And this marriage wasn’t supposed to be any different. In his head it all seemed very black and white. His money in exchange for Ondine’s collusion. Marriage as a performance.

But earlier when he had gone to find her in the bathroom, he had chosen to carry on in character even though there had been no staff around and it had been just the two of them. And while he’d been holding her hair and stroking her back, everything had loosened into something less rigid. More grey. No longer just in or out, but somewhere in between.

And he could live with that.

In fact, it had been a little naive to assume there wouldn’t be some overlap, some kind of compromise. He rolled onto his side, his eyes closing. But that didn’t mean he was about to get caught up in her lies.

Now that was progress.

Gazing down at her empty plate, Ondine sank back against the cushions. She had finished two whole slices of toast and, instead of nauseous, she felt light-headed, intoxicated almost. Was that possible? Could you get drunk on food?

It didn’t seem likely, but the last few weeks had taught her that anything was possible, no matter how unlikely. Miracles did happen, and, frankly, she was just relieved to not be feeling sick.

For almost all her life she had taken her body for granted. Unlike, say, her ability to recall facts or make good decisions, it was the one thing she could rely on and most of her life she had done so unreservedly. And then on that day trip to Martha’s Vineyard everything had changed. Each morning she woke up feeling as if she were a stranger, living in the same body but utterly changed. Since then, she had been forced to adapt on an almost hour-by-hour basis.

As of now, water and flat Gatorade were in; coffee was out. She still couldn’t even think about dairy produce and watching a film where the two lead protagonists ate pizza had made her skin turn clammy. But she was definitely feeling better and, thanks to Sally, she was starting to tentatively enjoy eating again.

The housekeeper really had been incredibly kind.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Pulse stumbling, Ondine glanced across the table.

She and Jack were having breakfast outside on the deck and anyone looking at them would think they were the perfect honeymooning couple. And Jack, louche in plaid pyjamas and a white T-shirt that emphasised his muscle-defined chest and arms, with his handsome face tilted up to the warm mid-morning sun, looked like the perfect husband.

He had been acting like one too.

Or maybe she didn’t mean acting, because that was what he did when other people were around—like now. And that was simply a box-ticking exercise designed to corroborate their marriage.

What she was talking about was how he behaved when it was just the two of them alone.

Picking up her glass, she took a sip of water. That first night, when he’d come into the bathroom, she had wanted to crawl into a ball and hide beneath a carapace of impenetrable spines. It had been bad enough being sick but to have Jack there watching—

She had thought he would leave her to it. After all, he couldn’t have made it clearer that he wasn’t responsible for this baby.

Her hands moved instinctively over her stomach as she remembered her own shock and disbelief and fluttery astonishment when she’d gazed down at the positive tests. After so long trying for a baby, to discover that she was pregnant with a man who was paying her to be his wife had been too much to take in. It hadn’t felt real, but then almost immediately she had started being sick and all her doubts had been confounded, forgotten. Irrelevant.

Jack’s too, maybe, she thought, her gaze arrowing in on his beautiful profile. Was that why he sat with her every night? Her sole guardian in those hours when the world shrank to the walls of their ensuite bathroom? Scooping back her hair. Talking nonsense to her in that beautiful, easy drawl of his while she retched and shook and wept.

She felt her heart thud hard inside her chest. He hadn’t said as much. But what other reason could there be?

‘What’s up?’

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