Modern Romance Collection: December 2017 Books 1 - 4. Эбби Грин

      Molly was disconcerted by that response; her lips framed a silent oh of perplexity and then hurt flared inside her where it didn’t show because she felt rejected. He had thought the concept over just as she had done but he had reached a different conclusion. She had decided that it could be a very good idea to have a family with him but evidently, after further consideration, Azrael had decided against the same idea. He had changed his mind. He was entitled to do that. Did that mean that he no longer wanted to keep her? And if he had decided that, what was she supposed to be doing about it?

      He hadn’t asked her to fall in love with him, had he? It was her own fault that she had fallen head over heels in a process that had started the day she first saw that gorgeous portrait of him in the Djalian Embassy. But they had originally signed up for only a few months of being married and perhaps Azrael had realised that that option would still suit him best. Was there even a possibility that he was already planning that his next wife would be Princess Nasira? In fact, was Molly merely a kind of hiccup and an aberration in Azrael’s planned marital journey?

      That sneaking, humiliating suspicion kept Molly quiet when she would normally have spoken up and asked him why he had changed his mind. How could she ever be good enough or loveable enough for someone like Azrael? she questioned painfully. Compressing her lips, she shut out the mad tumult of her rushing thoughts and stamped on them hard when they tried to emerge and torment her again. Agonising over what could not be would not change anything. It would not change what Azrael felt and thought, but if she was sensible, and she so badly wanted to be sensible, she would begin trying to detach herself from unrealistic hopes and step back from her emotions.