Maid of Dishonor (15 page)

Ten minutes later she found out he wasn't joking about that either.

THIRTEEN

‘Are you going
to sulk the whole day or can I expect a smile some time soon?'

Carter grinned at the surly expression Gina flicked his way from the passenger seat. He knew it was a cliché, but she looked cute when she was mad, especially with the wind blowing that sunshine-yellow dress against her figure as they drove down the river road.

‘You know, you still haven't told me why you're so keen to drag me to church today.' She scowled at him. ‘Apart from the obvious reason, of course.'

He shifted gear to take the bend and chuckled. ‘Which is?'

‘That you seem to get off on making me mad.'

She'd got that right, so he decided not to deny it. ‘Hey? Is it my fault you look so damn sexy when you pout?'

She rolled her eyes. ‘I'm going to be doing a lot more than pouting if this ordeal turns out as badly as I expect.'

He reached over the console to place a reassuring hand on her thigh—touched by the quiver of uncertainty in her voice.

He had to admit at first it had been a game getting her to hold his hand in public, getting her to cuddle up in bed each morning, hearing that sigh of surrender every time he increased the intimacy between them that bit more. But in the last week, he'd become addicted to pushing her boundaries, to seeing how far he could take it—and it didn't feel like a game any more. Because of that band that tightened around his heart now, every time the wary look flickered into her eyes when he got too close. For a woman who oozed sexual confidence, those moments of vulnerability intrigued and fascinated him and made him want to break down her barriers—to understand where her insecurities came from, and wipe them away.

He knew part of it had to do with her old man, whom she'd told him in a rare moment of candour had kicked her out as a teenager, but he couldn't quite shake the unpleasant thought that it also had something to do with him and what had happened between them a decade ago. Because every time he tried to talk about that, she shut up like a clam.

‘Come on, sugar.' He patted her leg through the silk, the amusement gone. ‘It won't be that bad, I swear.'

He caught her sceptical frown before returning his attention to the road.

‘Why
do
you want me there?' she asked, again, putting him on the spot.

He didn't really have an answer, or certainly not one he wanted to admit to. How could he tell her that he wanted people to know they were together? That he'd gotten tired of the fiction that this was all just about sex? Without it seeming as if he was trying to back out of their deal?

He knew she'd be leaving soon and he was good with that. Ever since the failure of his marriage he'd made a point of not getting too attached to the women he dated.

But even if this wasn't permanent, he'd never liked subterfuge and he liked even less Gina's desire to keep their affair a secret. Why couldn't they enjoy each other's company in public as well as private? And while
he
knew that taking her to his family's church would make people think they were serious, she didn't know that, and he sure wasn't going to tell her. So what was she so damned scared of?

‘No particular reason,' he lied smoothly. ‘I just figured it would be cool to have you there, introduce you to some folks.' It was a non-answer and he could tell she knew it when he heard her scoff above the hot rush of wind.

‘You know what drives me completely insane? The way you either answer a question with another question or give me an answer that means precisely nothing.'

He huffed out a chuckle. ‘That's bull. I'm an open book.' He'd sure as hell been a lot more forthcoming about his past than she had. ‘Go ahead and ask me anything you want.'

She swung round in the passenger seat and only then did it occur to him he might have given her too much rope. ‘All right, then, answer me this: why did you despise your father?'

He mentally banged his head against the steering wheel. He hadn't seen that one coming. ‘Why would you want to know that?'

‘That doesn't happen to be another question you've just asked me, does it?'

Busted
.

While he didn't much like getting caught on his own hook, he figured it would be smarter now not to give her the satisfaction of seeing him squirm.

Slowing the car to pull into the packed parking lot of the Riverside Church, he forced the words out on an indifferent monotone as he cruised into the only available slot at the end of the row. ‘When I was fifteen, I caught my daddy making out with one of the help in my mama's parlour.'

‘Making out? What exactly does that entail?'

He slung his arm over the wheel and stared at her, careful to keep his expression bland. ‘He had his pants round his ankles, the girl was on her knees in front of him and his face looked like he was about to bust a blood vessel. Is that clear enough?'

He'd raised his voice, the old anger giving him away, but instead of looking shocked or disgusted her eyes went dark with sympathy. ‘Nasty,' she said. ‘What did you do?'

‘I told my mother and she went nuts.' He relaxed into the seat, the old anger dissolving in a pool of resignation. ‘Not because of his
indiscretions
—she already knew about them—but because I'd had the bad manners to mention them.' He turned to Gina, the memory leaving a bitter taste. ‘I knew they weren't madly in love with each other—I'd never seen them so much as kiss each other in public or in private. But until then I had no idea the marriage was such a dishonest sham. I promised myself if I ever got married it would be different. I would never cheat or lie to myself or my wife.' Damn, what a self-righteous hypocrite he'd been. ‘Ironic, huh?'

* * *

Gina's pulse throbbed painfully in her neck. She hadn't expected his honesty and she didn't know how to make amends for the disillusionment that shadowed his eyes. ‘I'm so sorry I made you break your promise.'

He shook his head and laughed, the deep rumble both genuinely amused and oddly comforting. ‘Gina, sugar, no, you didn't.' He cupped her cheek. ‘Meeting you eventually made me see I'd been kidding myself. My only regret now is that I didn't figure that out before I got into a marriage that was an even bigger lie than my parents'.'

She pulled his hand away from her face, knowing she couldn't have this conversation while he was touching her with such affection. But it was the first insight he'd given her into his marriage, and she couldn't stop herself from asking: ‘How was it a lie?'

His gaze left hers and for a moment she felt sure he wouldn't answer, but then he shrugged. ‘In a lot of ways.'

‘What ways?'

The rueful grin returned. ‘I believe you told me that night that marrying a woman I had no knowledge of in the bedroom might end badly. Turns out you were right.'

‘The
sex
was a problem?' Gina gasped, astonished, and unable to deny the sweet rush of vindication.

‘Let's just say, she wasn't as enthusiastic about it as I was. Or you are.'

‘That's not good,' she replied, stupidly pleased that the Virgin Queen of her imagination had been a little frigid after all.

‘No, it sure isn't. It wasn't our biggest problem, but it felt big enough. Especially as I'd found out how good it could be...' He paused to clear his throat. ‘With you.'

She should have stopped there, and let it go, this was all water way under the bridge now, but the sweet rush had turned to a torrent—and seeing the approval in his eyes only made it more intoxicating. ‘What other problems did you have?'

‘Eventually? Way too many to count.' The flush of colour hit his cheeks and the rush of vindication turned to one of sympathy. ‘Before we were married she'd made me feel special,' he continued. ‘She never challenged me, never contradicted me, never tried to tell me what to do like my daddy did. But then he died and I spent the night with you—and what we had didn't seem so special any more.' He gave his head a solemn shake. ‘She said she'd forgiven me, that she still loved me, but she didn't trust me...' He sent her a wry look. ‘And how could I blame her?' He shrugged. ‘Whenever we argued, she always let me know I'd been the one to screw up our marriage before it had even started. Eventually, I began to wonder if I'd ever loved her—which only made me feel more guilty.'

Gina felt her throat close—choking on the knowledge he'd imparted so casually. ‘You didn't love Missy?' she whispered, the shock twisting her stomach into knots.

He shook his head and her lungs seized—the sharp pain an echo of the agony she'd spent so long denying.

He banged his thumb against the steering wheel, his voice a tense monotone as he continued. ‘Finally I stopped being such a gutless coward and asked for a divorce. Things got even uglier for a while. Marnie stopped talking to me and left Savannah for good.' He blew out a breath. ‘But at least I finally figured out I sucked at being a husband.'

Gina stared at him, the brittle sunlight making her eyes water, and the knowledge that he'd suffered so much too making her heart hurt. ‘I don't think that necessarily follows.'

‘I don't see how you could draw any other conclusion,' he murmured, his head bent.

‘Did you cheat on Missy while you were married?'

His head jerked up. He looked startled and annoyed at the accusation. ‘Hell, no.'

‘Then—while I know I'm hardly a disinterested party—I'd say you're being overly generous to your ex-wife.'

‘How do you figure that?'

‘If she couldn't trust you, why on earth did she agree to marry you?' she said, the knowledge that Missy had never understood him, and never appreciated him, making the pain lance through her. Why had she given up so easily? Let him go without a fight? ‘And frankly, holding that one night over you like the Sword of Damocles for the rest of your marriage sounds pretty manipulative to me.' And not much like the actions of a woman in love. ‘It takes two to make a marriage work and it doesn't sound as if she was doing her fair share.'

The chime of the church bell broke the pregnant silence in the car.

He raked his fingers through his hair, sweat slicking his brow. ‘We better get in there before we melt.'

‘Yes,' she said, grateful for the interruption—and the chance to get her emotions back under control.

‘Thanks,' he said, helping her out of the car, and her heart leapt into her throat. ‘You're right, Missy was pretty manipulative, and I guess I was so busy blaming myself, I never saw that before.'

He squeezed her hand as they walked towards the redbrick church building—which looked drab and utilitarian, unlike the brightly dressed congregation hurrying to get inside. As they slipped into the air-conditioned darkness and took seats in the back pew she tugged her hand out of his. But panic continued to claw at her throat and the sweat became clammy as it dried on her skin.

What the hell was she doing here? Letting herself revisit feelings that had nearly destroyed her once and she now knew had the potential to destroy her all over again? She'd assumed those wayward emotions couldn't trip her up a second time. That after what she'd endured and survived as a teenager, she was far too mature, far too resilient and self-reliant to make the same mistake again.

But the bubble of hope that had lodged under her breastbone told a very different story.

She needed to get away from him, get away from here, before she risked regressing into that wild, needy, insecure girl who had fallen hopelessly in love with Carter Price one warm summer night—and lived to regret it.

* * *

Way to go, Price
.
What made you shoot your mouth off like that?

It rattled him that he'd told Gina stuff he'd never told another soul. But what had rattled him a whole lot more was her response, and how it had finally lifted the weight he'd carried for so long over the failure of his marriage.

Luckily the pastor had been filled with the holy spirit this morning and the sermon had lasted nearly an hour, giving him time to settle. But as he bowed his head, reciting the Lord's Prayer from memory, he saw Gina fidgeting with the hymnal. He laid a hand over hers, but she stiffened and drew them away.

Frustration gripped. Why was she so tense and skittish?

After the service, he ushered her into the Fellowship Hall for the superb beverages and snacks the church ladies provided and the polite conversation that always followed—ignoring the glare that said clearer than words, ‘I'd like to leave now.'

While the urge to show her off had been replaced during the never-ending sermon by the burning desire to take her back to his bed and show her a different kind of heaven, he wasn't going to indulge it.

She meant more to him than just a roll in the hay—and he was sick of pretending that great sex and her commission were all that existed between them. He'd told her about his marriage, and it meant a lot to know she didn't judge him, the way he'd always judged himself.

He didn't want her to go hightailing it back to New York. He wanted her to stay in Savannah, to see where this might lead. While he wasn't laying any bets on the long haul, one thing he'd learned from his hell of a marriage was that you had to be honest about your feelings—and, damn it, he had feelings for Gina. And he knew she had feelings for him too.

Why she refused to admit them, he had no idea, but he intended to find out. Because he was dammed if he was going to let her shut him out any longer.

FOURTEEN

‘I need another
shower
.'
Gina flung her purse on the bed and yanked the pins out of her hair. Agitation crawled over her skin to add to the clammy layer of sweat. Agitation and something that felt unpleasantly like fear.

They'd hardly spoken on the drive back but she'd sensed his frustration—his usually fluid, graceful movements jerky and tense as he drove home—and she knew his mood wasn't much better than hers. So she made a Herculean effort to keep a lid on her own temper.

She needed to leave, this afternoon. And she wanted to do it quickly and quietly and as painlessly as possible—which meant for once in her life she needed to avoid making a scene.

Kicking off her shoes, she headed towards the bathroom, but a hard hand gripped her upper arm and swung her round to face him.

‘Don't you think it's about time you stopped sulking?' The surly, condescending tone was too much—even for Hercules. ‘Everyone was real polite, just like I said they would be. And they liked you, just like I knew they would. So I don't know what's got you so riled up.'

She wrestled her arm free. ‘Sulking? You think this is sulking? I'm not sulking, I'm so mad at you I could smack you, so I'd strongly advise you keep your hands off me.'

His eyes flared, a dark, dangerous, electric blue, and instead of taking the warning he grasped both her arms and dragged her to him until they were nose to nose. ‘You want to smack me? Honey, I've been resisting the urge to put you over my knee since we walked into the house. So don't tempt me!'

The last thread on her control snapped and then detonated like a firecracker. She struggled against his grip as the fear and panic that had been building all week—every time he touched her as if he cared, every time he held her with too much tenderness, every time he looked at her as if she mattered to him—and had exploded earlier when he'd told her about his marriage, lashed out and took control of her tongue.

‘How dare you pretend that I'm the one in the wrong here? You made me participate in that farce when you knew I didn't want to. This isn't a relationship. It's a fling. That's what we agreed and now you're trying to move the goalposts without my consent. I'm not your girlfriend, and I don't want to be.'

And if she could just make herself believe that, everything would be okay again.

‘And I certainly didn't sign up for that grilling I got from the ladies at your church who obviously now think we're madly in love and you're about to declare your intentions.' She could feel her anger gaining force and velocity at the memory of the subtly probing interrogation she'd had to endure over iced tea and butter-pecan cookies. ‘So I think it's probably best that we call it quits and I leave now.'

His fingers went slack, the stricken look shocking her into silence and making her realise how much she'd said. She brushed away the stupid tear that trickled down her cheek, hating herself for giving so much away.

‘Damn, Gina. Where the hell did that come from?'

Inadequacy and panic writhed in her stomach like venomous snakes—she couldn't let him see, she couldn't let him know how easily he could hurt her.

‘Nowhere.' She drew in an unsteady breath, and struggled to regain her composure. If he saw a weakness he'd exploit it—and get even further under her guard. ‘I'm fine. I simply feel this
fling
has reached its natural conclusion. And I'd like to leave.'

‘Stop lying to me and to yourself,' he said, the dogged determination in his tone making the fear increase. ‘This stopped being a fling days ago—for both of us. I'm not even sure it was
ever
just about the sex. Even ten years back, at Hillbrook. And you know it too, or you never would have come to The Standard to give me that dumb apology. What I wanna know is why you're too damn scared to admit it.'

She stiffened her spine, but couldn't look him in the eye. ‘There is no why. I'm just not the sort of woman who makes those kinds of attachments. And I never have been.'

‘Uh-huh.' He circled her arm, stroking the inside of her elbow with his thumb when a shiver ran through her. ‘So how come you're shaking?'

She drew her arm out of his grasp, rubbed skin suddenly chilled despite the warm sunlight flooding through the window. ‘Don't touch me,' she said, biting into her bottom lip to stop it trembling.

‘Whatever it is, you can tell me.' He touched his fingers to her cheek but she jerked her head back.

‘No, I can't. I don't want to.' But as soon as she'd said the words, she knew she'd given away too much.

‘Is it because of your old man? Is it because he kicked you out when you were still a kid? I know how that goes—my daddy made me feel like dirt too. It makes it hard to trust people, to trust how you feel.'

‘Don't psychoanalyse me.' Her whole body began to tremble but she forced herself to look him in the eye and keep the emotion, the need, on lockdown, the way she had learned to do with her father. The way she'd learned to do with him. ‘You don't know anything about my relationship with my father.'

‘Okay, then, why don't you tell me? Tell me why he kicked you out. What did you do that was so terrible?'

He was standing too close, looking at her in a way that threatened to crash through every last one of her defences. The panic and fear became so huge, the only way to save herself was to hit out. ‘If you must know, I came back from college in the US pregnant with a married man's child.'

‘What?'
His face went blank with shock—but there was no doubting he'd made the connection, when he raked shaking fingers through his hair and murmured, ‘Oh, hell, Gina, I'm sorry.'

The old misery, the cruel loneliness, the bitter agony of loss and rejection rose up her throat like bile. She swallowed, desperate to push it back down.

She couldn't bear his sympathy, or his guilt, not now, not ever, so she shut herself away in that place she'd found where she could always be safe, always remain invulnerable—and recited the details as if their baby had died inside someone else. ‘My father insisted I get rid of it. I refused. So I ended up living in a bedsit in Bayswater, working nights in a pub—and discovering that being a grown-up is a lot harder than it looks.'

He cursed under his breath. ‘Why didn't you contact me? Why didn't you let me know? I would have helped.'

‘Why would I contact
you
?' She put all the bitterness she could into the question to maintain the charade—and bury the hurt deep. ‘You went back to your fiancée. What was there to say? It was a one-night stand.' Even if she'd tried to delude herself it could have been so much more. ‘And in the end I didn't need your help. Because, thankfully, I lost the baby.'

It wasn't a lie, not really, she
had
been thankful in the end—after all the tears and the soul-searching and the mind-numbing grief. Thankful that she would never get the chance to screw up motherhood, the way she'd managed to screw up everything else.

‘I'd managed to pull my life together in the process and get clear of my father,' she added, when he didn't respond. ‘So it was all good.'

‘How could it be good?' The shock cleared from his eyes to be replaced by hurt and confusion—and temper. ‘If I'd had any idea, I never would've gone through with the wedding. You should have told me. I had a right to know.'

‘Maybe.'

‘And why the hell didn't you tell me
now
? We've been sleeping together for over a week, living in each other's pockets, and you didn't think it was worth mentioning?'

‘No, I didn't.'

‘I don't get it,' he said, the anger edged with disbelief. ‘How could I be so damn wrong about you? I thought we had something going here.'

‘Well, you thought wrong.'

‘I never would have guessed anyone could be so hot in the sack and yet so heartless out of it.'

She let the accusation wash over her, like all the others.

He can't hurt you, unless you let him.

‘I suppose that's one of the many mysteries of the universe, isn't it, Lover Boy.' She scooped her purse up off the bed, slung it over her shoulder, and fisted her fingers on the strap so he wouldn't see them shaking. ‘I'll catch a cab to the airport. If you could have my luggage sent on, I'd appreciate it. I'll email you when the website and blog are live.'

He didn't say anything as she walked away. But while the panic pushing against her chest began to ease as she ran through the mansion's hallways, the pain she'd spent ten years running away from turned into a living, breathing thing—as sharp and relentless as it had ever been as it consumed her.