CHAPTER THREE
KATE searched the rugged face for signs of madness; there could surely be no other explanation for the outrageous statement he had just made. He just stared straight back at her with clear blue eyes, looking surprisingly boyish despite his thirty-four years.
And why shouldn’t he look boyish—the man had probably never taken on a responsibility in the whole of those years! And she wasn’t about to take on being any man’s meal ticket again, even if this one was a charming rogue.
‘Do you usually imbibe this time of the morning?’ she scorned, turning away.
‘Look at me, Kate. Look at me!’ Jared repeated harshly as he received no response.
She turned back to him slowly, hardly recognising the ‘charming rogue’ in this rigid-jawed man. ‘I’m looking at you,’ she snapped as he made no effort to speak to her.
‘And I’m looking at you,’ he nodded. ‘Not all men are the same as your first fiancé, Kate. Whatever he did to you, I would never do the same.’
‘How can you be so sure when you don’t even know what he did?’ she derided.
‘Because I would never do anything to hurt you,’ he explained simply.
Her mouth twisted. ‘No man will ever be in a position to hurt me again.’
‘I just told you—–’
‘Especially someone like you,’ she continued with contempt. ‘I’ve already had a sample of men like you,’ she dismissed scornfully, ‘and I don’t want it again.’
‘Men like me?’ Jared prompted softly, his stance challenging.
‘Yes!’ Her eyes flashed deeply gold. ‘You drift around the world living from day to day, never giving of yourself but always taking from others. Well, I have nothing to give. I already gave—too damned much,’ she added bitterly.
‘I want to marry you, Kate,’ he bit out tautly.
‘And how do you intend to support me?’ Her mouth turned back with scorn. ‘Or didn’t that enter into the plan of things? Of course it didn’t,’ she derided. ‘You like an independent woman—now I realise why. I don’t intend marrying you, Jared. I met you at a time when I was feeling vulnerable, bruised, in need of someone to help me through a difficult experience in my life. But as far as I’m concerned that’s all there was to it. I’m sorry if you read more into it than what there was.’
‘Are you?’ he rasped.
She sighed heavily. ‘Look, Jared, at the time I needed you. You had a sleeping partner for a couple of days and I managed to sort out my life, that’s all there was to it,’ she dismissed again. ‘We didn’t make any vows or lasting commitments to each other. It was a physical interlude, nothing else.’ And it was an interlude that would probably haunt her for the rest of her life, completely out of character for her, although she wasn’t going to tell him that; better that he continued to think of her as a sophisticate.
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