She didn’t look up. But her grip tightened, crumpling the edge of the file she held.
“The deal,” he repeated. He reached out and took her wrist between his fingers. “We did have one, didn’t we?”
She tensed, though she didn’t try to pull back her hand. “Trent, I don’t think we should—”
“I do.”
She lifted her chin. “Look, I know you’re angry.”
He ran his thumb across the inside of her wrist, until he found the pulse, jumping and skittering between the delicate bones. “Am I?”
“Well, you’ve been gone all weekend. I’m not a fool, Trent. I know what that means.”
He thought of Peggy, of the secret trips he’d been making to Darlonsville for five years now. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know. He hadn’t wanted to look as if he did it only for the good public relations it might bring.
“And what do you think it means?”
“It means…” She bit her lower lip. “I know where you must have been, who you must have been with. Even though, when we agreed to do this, you promised me that there would be no other women, not while we were married.”
He tugged her wrist slightly. She either had to wrestle herself free or come around the desk to meet him. She chose to come around, though it brought her close enough that he could see the nervous twitch next to the corner of her mouth.
Ah…she felt more fear now than anger. In a perverse way, that pleased him. It proved he still had power.
And he saw something else, too. A physical awareness of him that heated the surface of her cheeks.
It made him ache, being so close to her, smelling her, hating her and wanting her all at the same time. It was as if someone had shoved a hot brand against the small of his back.
“I did promise I’d be faithful,” he said, careful to keep his tone lightly ironic. “But that was when I believed I’d be getting what I needed here at home…within the marriage bed, so to speak.”
“Yes,” she said quickly. “Yes, of course I see the difference. So that’s why I wanted to make you an offer. I understand that it’s a…a hardship to have to…to do without sex for a full year, and…”
He smiled. Her pulse had tripped on itself from the effort to even say the word sex.
“And?”
She swallowed, blinking as she tried to hold his gaze. “And I’d like to make it up to you. Financially, I mean. I was thinking ten thousand dollars for every month we’re married. That’s one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, when the year is up, when I can sell the acres I need, and—”
He tilted his head, chuckling softly. “You’re offering to pay me not to have sex with you?”
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