“There is no us, Bryan. It was all an act. Don’t start confusing that with reality.”
His eyes narrowed. “Last night was no act.”
“Last night was…” She almost called it a mistake. She bit that word back because she didn’t really think of it that way. Maybe it had complicated things between them, but she had no regrets. She was going to savor those memories for a very long time.
“Last night was a one-time thing,” she said instead.
“You really think so?” he asked, his voice silky.
She lifted her chin. “I know so.”
“I’m wondering which of us is really denying reality now?”
She sighed and planted her fists on her hips. “Just what is it you want from me, Bryan?”
“I want you to marry me.”
Grace sagged for a moment against the kitchen countertop, needing its support. Of all the answers she had expected to her exasperated question, a proposal had not been one of them.
“Have you lost your mind?” she asked in a gasp.
Bryan pushed a hand through his hair. “Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.”
“Then let’s just pretend you never said what you just said.”
“I’m tired of pretending, Grace. This is real.”
Taking a few steps away from him, she shook her head. “I think you should leave now. It’s obvious that we need some time apart—just to clear our minds and to put some distance between us.”
He watched her without making any move to follow her. “You think my mind is clouded?”
She took another few steps away from him. “I think you’ve gotten carried away by everything that’s been going on lately
. You know, spending so much time together. You getting hurt. Dinner with your parents. The wedding. And, uh, well—after the wedding.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, an odd half smile playing around his lips. “Grace?”
Now she was really getting nervous. Why the hell was he smiling? “What?”
“Where are you going?”
She realized that she had inched so far away from him she was almost entirely out of the kitchen. Embarrassed, she stopped and lifted her chin. “I’m not going anywhere. You are.”
“I know you’re afraid…”
Her shoulders squaring, she drew herself taller. “I am not afraid of you.”
“You’re afraid of how you feel about me. I understand. It’s safer to protect yourself. To follow your predictable routines, keeping your parents and your sister happy, ignoring your own dreams and wishes.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You think I haven’t gotten to know you during the past year? Everything you do is for Chloe—making sure she and Donovan got together, going to so much trouble to see that the wedding was unspoiled. Even the shop was Chloe’s dream, not yours—but you’re the one who’ll be doing much of the work there now that she’s married.”
That stung. She glared at him, almost quivering with temper and suppressed emotion. “And I suppose you consider yourself the well-adjusted one between us? You’re the one who went shopping for a wife as though you were looking for a promising new business investment. You’re the one who left a string of busty blondes to start tracking down a woman who fit some stupid list of wife requirements because you’re such an arrogant control freak you thought you could just order up a wife the way you would a pizza. And then, when it didn’t work out with your first choice, you just switched over to her twin sister!”
She had effectively removed the smile from his face. When he moved toward her, she was unable to resist taking another step backward. Not that she was intimidated by his fierce glare, she assured herself. She was simply moving out of his way if he was trying to leave.
He stopped directly in front of her. “I do not consider you to be a convenient substitute for Chloe,” he said between clenched teeth.