I have already read, then I am pleased for you.’ He kept his voice neutral, not wanting a trace of any kind of emotion to be heard, especially the new and strange one he suddenly had to deal with.
‘Why would it be any different?’ She frowned up at him. ‘You don’t trust me, do you, Nikolai?’
Of course he didn’t trust her and now, thanks to a moment of weakness, she knew everything. She still had the ability to shatter his mother’s happiness. That was something he wasn’t going to allow to happen at any price and precisely why he’d flown to Russia in the first place.
‘Is Richard a close friend of yours?’ he asked, unable to keep his curiosity under control any longer, or the anger at the way the idea of Richard and Emma being close filled him with such strong emotions.
‘Why do you ask?’ Her cautious question was just what he’d expected—and feared. She was hiding something; of that he was certain.
Despite his suspicions, there was no way he was going to let her know how he felt, so he assumed an air of indifference he definitely didn’t feel. ‘I have limited the wedding guests to immediate family and close friends. I just wanted to know if he was a close friend.’
She looked down, not able to meet his gaze, and when she looked up again disappointment and sadness were in her eyes, but he refused to be made to feel guilty. ‘He’s helped me a lot and, yes, once I hoped we could be more than friends. I’m sure there are women like that in your past.’
He hadn’t anticipated such honesty and it threw him off balance for a moment as he realised the truth of what she’d said. ‘There was someone once, yes.’
Why had he said that? Why had he brought his ex-fiancée into this?
‘Someone you loved?’ she asked cautiously.
‘No, someone I couldn’t love, someone who needed that from me and I couldn’t give it to her—or maybe it was because I didn’t want to give it. Either way, the engagement ended.’
‘You were engaged?’ Her brows lifted in surprise and he regretted saying anything, but then maybe it would back up all he’d already told her, convince her that love was not something he could do.
‘I was, yes.’ He didn’t want to have this conversation with her. It was something he never spoke of.
She clutched at her hair and looked away from him, as if she sensed his reluctance to talk. ‘I’ve always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. Thanks for this.’
Shocked by her change of subject, he looked up, and sure enough they were close to the statue as it reached up into the spring sky. He’d been so absorbed in her and the way he was thinking about her, feeling about her, that he hadn’t even registered they’d got this far.
Emma turned and looked at him, her expression serious. What was it about this woman that muddled his senses so much? Every time he was with her he lost all clarity on what it was he wanted from her and from life.
‘I don’t expect love from you, Nikolai.’ Her voice was as clear as a mountain stream but it didn’t settle the unease he felt.
‘What do you expect?’
‘Nothing, Nikolai. You’ve made that perfectly clear from the very beginning. Our marriage is purely for the baby’s sake.’ She laid her hand lightly on his arm and, just as he had done before, he pulled back from her touch, not wanting such intimacy.
‘We each have things to gain from the marriage, Emma.’
Emma looked at Nikolai and her heart began to break. She knew the whole thing was a deal, that their marriage was nothing more than a convenience, but always there had been a spark of hope fuelled by the heady passion they’d shared. Now that spark had gone, extinguished by his cold words.
‘All I want is to be able to bring up my child, Nikolai. Do you promise me my ability to do that will never be questioned, even if we are apart?’ She didn’t want to tell him the truth behind her demands, but if it made him realise just how much she wanted this then it would have to be done.
She wanted her child to know who she was, not to think of her as a distant shadow in the background, as her own mother had become. It still hurt that a woman could turn her back so easily on the two children she’d given birth to, but she’d always told herself and Jess that their mother had been sick and didn’t know what she was doing. Now, with her own baby on the way, she seriously doubted this. Her mother just hadn’t wanted either her or Jess.
Nikolai’s dark eyes searched hers but she couldn’t look into them for fear he’d see the pain she felt about her mother and she looked beyond him to the passing city as the boat headed back along the river to the pier they’d left earlier.
‘Why would I ever question that?’ He moved a little closer, as if sensing there was much more to her demand.
She looked back at him, feeling the cooling wind in her face. ‘I have already told you my sister and I were in care as children.’
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