Page 27 of The Marriage Deal
The question rang in my mind. I kissed her because I wanted to. The taste of her lips haunted me day and night. And once I kissed her at the altar, something that I had not planned on doing, by the way, I wanted to kiss her again and again.And do more than that.
We entered the library, and I took her to the history section. Her gaze kept darting around the castle in awe. "Everything is so medieval," she said, rubbing her hands around her arms. Because the castle wasn't fully insulated, some rooms remained cold even in summer.
"My mom likes keeping it like this. And since this place is mostly a museum and a holiday house, the theme works."
She ran her hands over the old books that mostly populated the library. "You vacation here?"
"Sometimes. When my mother is not on a yacht with her latest lover. She's the one who usually organizes the holidays."
Elle raised her eyebrows. "You don't sound like you enjoy it."
Did she detect the derision in my voice?
When I didn't respond, she said, "Is that why you always come to England for Christmas?"
"Nolan loves getting the gang together on holidays, so some Christmases I spend in New York." My mother preferred only to spend time with Seb, Ty, and me, and whenever we went to Nolan's place, she would go on vacation with her friends.
She shook her head. "The dynamics of your family are so complicated."
"I don't know. I'm kinda used to it, I guess."
She tilted her head to the side and looked like she was about to say more, but then shook her head and said, "So where's the book you were talking about?"
I walked to the bookshelf behind her. As I reached for the book she wanted, I brushed against the side of her breast. I bit my tongue to resist any temptation. She wore a bottle-green tank top, shorts, and Doc Martens. Her hourglass figure turned this simple outfit into something that looked like a burlesque costume. My cock had been semi-hard ever since she came out of her room wearing denims that clung to her curvy butt so well.
I took out the book and gave it to her. "It was written by a Victorian historian, Sir Gregory Watson. He gathered firsthand accounts, letters, and documents from Muslim warriors who converted to Christianity. Some returned to France. A few were of African descent."
Her face beamed as she reverently held the book in her hands. "Wow. You've made my thesis simple. Thank you." She examined the book, slowly opening the pages as though she were afraid it would disintegrate in her hands. She closed the book. Her eyes darted back to my face, a frown appearing on her brow. "Why are you doing this?"
I jerked back. "Doing what? Giving you a book?"
"You know what I mean."
"No, I don't, Miss Edwards."
"Oh," her brows shot up. "It's Miss Edwards now?"
"Is that not your name?"
She chuckled and shook her head. I knew what she was thinking. That I was withdrawing from her. That I was too personal and pulling back. It was the right thing to do. Regardless of our sham marriage, she was still my subordinate. I had already gone too far in marrying her. A mistake I shamelessly refused to regret.
"Fine, Mr. Hawthorne." She tilted her chin up. I hate how beautiful she looked when she did that. She wore her sable black hair in a large afro puff, which bounced as she moved, and I longed to unravel it. "Why did you go through all that?"
"What?"
"Acquiring the collection. Not only did you drop twenty fucking million pounds, you had to resort to marrying your TA to do it. Why?"
"To set the record straight."
"Bullshit. You've never cared about what people think about you until that interview. And if I didn't know better, I would say the interview went the way it went because they hit you too close to the heart."
Of course, she would be the one to catch it. She has always been astute when it comes to her assessment of me. "You're right, you don't know any better."
She placed the book she was holding down on a coffee table next to her and put one foot in front of the other, slowly gliding like a panther until she was a few inches away from me. "Bullshit," she said to my face.
"I know you think you know me, but you don't."
"Quite the opposite, actually. I know very little about you. You try to hide your true self. But when you think you’re covered, your cloak tears. Then, I catch a glimpse of the real you. And in that interview, the way you retreated into yourself and let that hack historian and that journalist browbeat you, you revealed something about yourself that I had never seen before."
