Blazed(52)

"So why the hell didn't it occur to you to engage your god damn genius brain so I didn't get hurt?"

"Because this wasn't supposed to happen!" He grabbed both of my shaking hands in one of his and caged me against the wall, pinning me by the hips with his feet on either side of mine. I saw the frantic throbbing of his pulse in his neck and knew that I was going to be forced to hear him out whether I liked it or not. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I thought we'd spend some reckless times together terrorising the streets of London. You looked like you needed that kind of mischief in your life."

"I did."

"And I thought I might end up drilling you into a few mattresses on occasion. The only reason I didn't at first is because I didn't think you'd appreciate the advance. Sex is usually important to a woman and you're a bigger commitmentphobe than I am." He stopped to draw breath and whimper, visibly battling the impulse to throw me over his shoulder and show me how much of a coward I'd made him, and make sure I damn well liked it. "So this wasn't supposed to happen, Emmeline. We weren't supposed to fal—"

"Oh god," I made a futile attempt at twisting out of his trap, tugging at his grip on my hands urgently, pleadingly. This conversation wasn't welcome, we'd avoided it on purpose. I hadn't planned for it to come up in my inquisition so I wasn't prepared to hear it. "Please don't say it."

He caught my face and stroked back the hair from my eyes. His gaze was intense and turbulent, all of his fears mirroring mine and roiling there. His thumb traced the outline of my lips and he tensed like he was bracing himself for my volatile reaction, leaning away just fractionally. "We weren't supposed to fall in love." A shudder I made no effort to hide shook through me. "I know. You're angry at me— you didn't plan for this either— and I never intended on..." he shrugged and flicked his gaze over me, "... this." His voice softened in surrender. "I never dreamed that it would be both so painful and so... amazing."

Sighing, he rested his forehead against mine and released my hands, which fell bonelessly to my sides. My mind was too tired to go on with the charade. "The fact remains that you're married. I won't be the other woman. You know who I am now, you know it's too much of a scandal. You're friends with my dad— he won't allow it."

"Nobody will know. I don't even know how Tallulah knows, but I won't give you up. What I have is a marriage of convenience— it means nothing to me. I don't love her, never have. I love y—"

"Then why the hell did you marry her?" He looked at me severely for cutting him off and stepped back to free me from his confines. I didn't care if he was annoyed; I couldn't hear those three words. They were too much far too late with way too much heavy baggage. I'd walked through my life believing that marriage was a holy sanction between two people, meaningful and with a view to be permanent. We had no future if his attitude towards a tradition I respected so much was dismissive at best.

"I didn't know that you were going to walk into my life one day. If I'd known, I would have waited for you."

"I thought we had an unspoken no bullshit rule, Blaze. Why did you marry a woman you didn't love?"

"You won't like it," he warned me, posture suddenly hesitantly rigid and almost repulsed. His grip on me slackened and that was the only clue I needed to know that I didn't want to hear it.

"You're right. I won't. So don't say it and go home."

"She's dying." I stared at him blankly for a moment before twisting away from him. He let me, resigned to my disapproval, and stood there with his eyes closed. Those two words were enough. "She's dying and I get everything if I stay with her. All she wanted was to own me for a while when she found out she was ill— she's been crazy about me since school. I'm like the only item on her bucket list. It doesn't matter to her if I don't love her as long as I'm there until the end. The money, the car, the house— I lose that if I walk away now. It's just a matter of time, then we—"

"Stop talking!" Breathing through the burn of tears in the backs of my eyes, I wrapped my arms around myself and sank down to the floor. His wife and the woman he cared for were the same person. I couldn't believe that I hadn't made the connection before. He'd married a sick woman, motivated by her monetary value. No wonder he got on so well with Henry.

For the first time, his behaviour sickened me and there was no way I could work my mind around it in good conscience. The clarification and dirty details hadn't been necessary, but at least he had the decency to look ashamed of himself.

"You're staying with a dying woman just so you get her money? Do you realise how corrupt and selfish that is? She loves you and you look at her as nothing but a cash cow— a pending pay out like all you've been doing is babysitting her. And you expect me to sit around with you waiting for her die so you can marry me and we can spend her money together? I'm rich too, Blaze— at least I'm supposed to be. Will you do the same to me?"

Blaze dropped to his knees and crawled towards me. If I'd been a stronger person, I might have taken some sick satisfaction in it and demanded he dropped down and crawled on his belly for my forgiveness. Really milked it and made him feel like shit on my shoe. But I was too caught up in feeling awful for the poor woman he was scamming.

"Of course not! I don't know Emmeline Tudor, the billionaire's daughter, I know Emmeline White, the piss poor girl too principled to touch dirty money. I gave you that ring before I knew, didn't I? Emmeline, my life is made and secure. I don't have to worry about paying my bills, I sleep in a comfortable bed every night, there's no concern over where my next job comes from... Natasha plays no active role in my life beyond being a job. She's just something I have to do. The only thing that would make my life better would be sharing it all with you— sharing that security."

"Oh god." Natasha. She had a name. That meant she was a real, honest to God, flesh and blood human with a heart, soul, conscience and feelings just like me. The dying victim of a selfish liar. "You have to leave. I have to leave. I have to go to Daniel."

"That bad?" I nodded too much, trying to shake off the warm feeling that threatened to dull the hurt because Blaze knew me well enough to understand Daniel was my Good Samaritan in my darkest moments. "Give me time, please. It won't be much, I promise. She doesn't ha—"

"You want me to sit around waiting for you because she's on death's door? Jesus!" I scrambled to my feet, slapping away his hands when he approached me. "Sit around waiting until you can spare me a minute of your precious uninterrupted time? You're as bad as Hunter."

"Don't you dare say I'm like him!" I gasped at sudden searing flare in Blaze's temper and held my breath— a breath that was knocked out of me when he lunged and dragged me back to the floor. As soon as I recovered from the tumble, he closed his mouth over mine and kissed me with suppressed violence, grinding his hips against me so I could feel how hard he was. How much he wanted me. Needed me. I hated that I needed him too, not just enough to not fight him off, but enough to make me kiss him back.

"I earned your love, Emmeline." He growled against my lips and pushed a hand down beyond the waistband of my trousers. I answered with a moan and felt all the blood in my body push up to my skin and flush me all over like I'd been thrown into a fire. He was slow and deliberate, teasing the soft flesh between my legs with his fingertips. "You need to give me time. I'll make you understand that this is necessary, but I have my ways, Emmeline. This can and will go the way I want it to, and you're the reason why it will. Understand?"

I clamped my teeth down on his lip and didn't let go when I mumbled, "I'm having no part in your warped scheme. You can't make me." It was a challenge. Right then, I was so blinded by my libido that I really wanted to see how he planned to make me fall into line.

"I earned that money. You don't understand why— you can't understand. You just need to accept it."

"No. Ah, god!" Two fingers drove into me and twisted, making it too hard to think. God, I needed him there inside me. I'd needed it since Tallulah had dropped that bombshell on me. He had to catch me and make me see. There was no way he couldn't. I'd have wanted him to chase me until he did.

"I can make you trust me. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes," I breathed, pushing down onto him, "you can push your point across by f*cking the hell out of me, then abuse the fact that I let my guard down to make me admit how much I want you to make me see it your way. You can manipulate me into going against all my morals just to hang onto you by my fingernails and spend the rest of my life wondering if I'm just another wealthy woman on your bucket list. So do it already. Make me hate myself."