Page 52 of Marriage Bargain with His Innocent
CHAPTER TEN
MATIASHESITATED.HEwondered if this was what it felt like to have one foot dangling over the edge of a precipice, with no safety net below. He’d become accustomed to exercising complete control over every aspect of his life, so this was a first, sitting here, staring at the woman who had been in his head ever since he had walked away from her, knowing what he had to do and what he had to say and yet fearful of an outcome he couldn’t predict.
‘I didn’t come here because I thought you couldn’t cope...with...with life in a big city...’
‘That’s not what you said.’
‘And it’s what I told myself when I decided to fly over,’ Matias admitted unevenly.
Restless, he sprang to his feet, lean body taut with suppressed tension, and paced the small kitchen before sinking back into the chair. but this time leaning forward towards her, elbows on thighs.
‘I told myself that I was worried about you...that it was a perfectly understandable reaction. But that’s not why I came, Georgie.’
‘Good.’
Something about the uncertain expression on his face was striking a chord inside her, eroding her determination to stand her ground proudly and get rid of him as fast as she could. Since when did Matias Silva ever look uncertain?
‘I had to come. I had to talk to you.’
Georgina folded her arms and didn’t say anything. Silence, he had once told her, was always a successful ploy when it came to getting other people to say things they might not have banked on saying. What better time to try it out for herself?
‘I’ve been...thinking about you, Georgie... I haven’t been able to focus...’
Georgina stiffened. He was a man who was only about sex—it didn’t take a genius to figure out why she’d been on his mind. It would certainly explain the hesitancy on his face.
‘In that case,’ she told him coldly, ‘you’ve had a wasted trip.’
‘What do you mean?’ He looked at her narrowly, but the ground was slowly giving way under his feet and he couldn’t think straight.
‘Imean,’ she said quietly, as the energy for a fight seeped out of her, ‘I’m not returning to any sort of relationship with you.’
‘You’re not?’
‘Matias...’ She tugged her fingers through her long, unruly hair and sat facing him, chin propped in her hand, green eyes sad and pensive. ‘I know what this is about. You tell me that I’ve been on your mind...that you can’t focus? I realise that what you want to say is that you miss the sex. But I won’t be coming back to you to pick up where we left off until you get genuinely bored with me. We had a clean break and now I’m moving forward.’
‘You can’t be.’
Georgina laughed shortly.How dared he?‘Really, Matias? And why’s that?’
‘Maybe becauseI’mnot, and I’m desperate enough to hope that I’m not alone in that.’
His voice was a mumble and she had to strain to pick up what he had said.
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Matias,’ she told him bluntly, just in case hope started sprouting shoots and staging a takeover.
‘I haven’t come here because I miss the sex. I haven’t come here to rescue you from your decision to leave England. I’ve come here because Ihaven’tmoved on.’
He sat back, swept his hands through his hair, his eyes not quite meeting hers, and then he sighed and pressed his fingers against his eyes.
‘I never realised it before and maybe I should have,’ he muttered in a shaken voice, watching as she inclined her head to one side, wary and attentive at the same time.
‘What do you mean? And please don’t spin me any stories, Matias. Don’t say stuff you don’t mean because you think it’ll make me feel better or worse, or because you think it might get me back into bed with you.Whathave you never realised before?’
‘When you waltzed into my house you were the last person I expected. You’d never been to see me before. You’d never expressed any desire to come to London. You’d never shown any interest in what sort of life I led there, or what sort of place I lived in. And yet...’
‘And yet...?’
‘And yet I wasn’t fazed. I didn’t stop to think about that. I should have. If I had, I would have realised that you and I...we have so much history between us. I’ve known you for ever.’
