Page 39 of Marriage Bargain with His Innocent
Rose scuttled out of the kitchen.
‘You’re breathing fire,’ Matias drawled. ‘Care to tell me why?’
‘Why do youthink, Matias?’
‘My mother does have a point,’ he agreed mildly. ‘If you want your career to develop beyond doing a few shoots for the chef down the road, then you’re eventually going to have to head for the big, bad city lights.’
‘Youknowthat’s not what she was talking about!’
She clicked her tongue with annoyance. How could he just lounge there, sprawled in that chair with that half-smile on his face, looking so drop-dead gorgeous when he should be taking her seriously? She knew that if he’d already got sick of her, if the sex had run its course, then he would be leaping onto the exit strategy she had tried to set in motion.
‘True,’ Matias was honest enough to admit.
‘We need to prepare the way for your mother to realise that this isn’t going to end up where she thinks it is. Matias, read between the lines. Rose is building up to this being more than just a relationship. Why didn’t you follow my lead?’
‘I’ve always hated the concept of being a follower.’
‘I’m being serious!’ Georgina cried with frustration.
Matias pressed his fingers against his eyes, and when he looked at her it was with bone-wrenching gravity. ‘I know you are,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And, trust me, I fully appreciate the wisdom of what you were trying to do. But...’
He raked his fingers through his hair and for the first time since she had known him Georgina could see that he was grappling to express what he wanted to say. In a man as fluent, as lazily sophisticated and utterly controlled and self-assured as Matias Silva, it was a sight that left her temporarily lost for words.
‘But...?’ she encouraged, when nothing further seemed to be forthcoming.
He straightened in the chair and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘But this whole charade has gone down an unexpected route.’
‘I don’t understand...’
‘My mother was depressed. I found myself somehow cajoled into a role I hadn’t auditioned for...’
‘Igetthat, Matias.’ The last thing Georgina felt she needed was a reminder of just how much of an unwilling participant he had been in this whole charade. ‘Which is why—’
‘Hear me out, Georgie. I thought that once my mother was back in the land of the living—mentally—we could bring this whole game to a timely end. I hadn’t banked on my relationship with my mother veering off in unforeseen directions.’ He shifted uncomfortably and looked at her broodingly. ‘We’ve spent a lifetime plodding along,’ Matias said heavily. ‘Always polite, always distant.’
His voice was so low that she had to move close to him to hear what he was saying. Having sat down, she felt her knees almost touching his, and she was leaning into him, her bright hair pulled over one shoulder.
He absently tugged at the curling ends of her hair, twirling strands around his finger while he continued to hold her gaze. It was a gesture of unbearable intimacy and it went straight to the very core of her, even though she knew she was reading way too much into it.
‘I spent half a lifetime pulling away from my parents,’ he said ruefully. ‘In the end we simply inhabited different worlds. My father could never understand it, and my deepest regret is that it became a rift that was never resolved. With my mother... Well, I suppose I tried to heal that rift by making sure no expense was spared. Whatever she wanted, she got.’
He shrugged.
‘Now, though, that rift is healing, and it’s an unexpected by-product of this little charade of ours. I’ve never been closer to my mother. That’s why I chose not to take you up on the very considerate rescue package you were putting into motion.’ He leaned back and shot her a crooked half-smile. ‘I can see that you’re moved by my uncustomary outpouring of confidences...’
‘I think it’s brilliant that you and your mother are finding a way forward...’ Georgina wanted to tack a diplomaticbuton the end of that remark, but then she looked at him, at his guarded expression, and her heart twisted.
She gazed back helplessly at him and he pulled her towards him and kissed her.
Conversation closed.
