‘There’s something I want you to see.’
Violet was taken aback by a remark that seemed to come from nowhere. ‘What is it?’
‘Wait here.’ In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten the costly item of jewellery nestling in its classy black and gold box. His fait accompli present. Whoever said that the Great One didn’t work in mysterious ways?
She was still sitting in the same position in the kitchen when he returned and extended his hand. ‘For you,’ he informed her solemnly. ‘I hear what you’re saying and this is just a small measure of what you mean to me...’
Violet took the box but already she could feel her skin beginning to get clammy. What he meant to her. How many times had she told him that she didn’t want anything from him? She lifted the lid of the box and stared down at an item of jewellery that she knew would have been spectacularly expensive. What she meant to him would never be love, it certainly wasn’t durability. She was his willing plaything and her worth could be counted in banknotes. She fought down the stupid urge to cry over a piece of jewellery that would have had any other woman shrieking in delight.
‘I don’t want it.’ She stuck it back in the box, snapped shut the lid and handed it to him.
‘What do you mean? I know you’ve made a big deal about not accepting anything from me, but you want to know what this...what we have...means to me...take it in the spirit with which it was given.’ He obviously wasn’t about to relieve her of the necklace.
‘I think it’s time we called this a day, Damien.’ It hurt just saying that but say it she knew she had to. In that single gesture he had made her feel sordid and cheap.
‘Where the hell is this coming from?’
‘I can’t be bought for a few weeks or months of sex until you get tired of me and send me on my way with...with what...? Something even bigger and more expensive? A really huge pat on the back, it was nice knowing you goodbye gift?’
Damien wondered how long she had been contemplating the outcome of their relationship and working herself up to wanting more. Was she holding him to ransom or did she genuinely want out and if she did genuinely want out, how was it that she was still on fire for him? No, that made no sense.
But if she wanted more, if she wanted a passport to a lifestyle she could never have attained in a million years, then was it so inconceivable that he give it to her...?
‘I don’t want to buy you,’ he murmured. ‘I want to marry you...’
‘SORRY?’ THERE WAS a rushing sound in her ears. She thought it might have temporarily impaired her hearing.
‘You say you can’t be in a relationship if you think it’s not going anywhere. Curious considering we embarked on this relationship in the expectation that it wouldn’t go anywhere.’
‘I didn’t think a game of make-believe would...would...’ Violet was still grappling with what he had said. Had he actually asked her to marry him? Had she imagined the whole thing? He certainly didn’t have the expectant, love struck look of a man who had just voiced a marriage proposal.
‘Nor did I. And yet it did and now here we are. Which brings me back to my marriage proposal.’
So, she hadn’t been imagining it. And yet nothing in his expression gave any hint that he was talking about anything of import. His eyes were unreadable, his beautiful face coolly speculative. Violet, on the other hand, could feel a burning that began in the pit of her stomach and moved outwards.
Marriage? To Damien Carver? The concept was at once too incredible to believe and yet fiercely seductive. For a few magical seconds, her mind leapfrogged past all the obvious glitches in his wildly unexpected proposal. She was in love with the man who had asked her to marry him! Even when she had been going out with Stu, even though they had occasionally talked about marriage, she had never felt this wonderful surge of pure happiness.
Reality returned and she regretfully left her happy ever after images behind. ‘Why would you want to marry me?’
‘I’m enjoying what we have. I’m not getting any younger. Yes, at the time we started out on our charade, I had not given a passing thought to settling down, even though I realised that that was what my mother wanted...’
Too hurt by past rejection to go there again...went through Violet’s head.
‘Now I can see that it makes sense.’
‘Makes sense?’
‘We get along. You’ve bonded with my family. They like you. My mother sings your praises. Dominic tells me that you’re one of a kind, a gem.’ He paused, thought of Annalise with distaste, wondered how he could ever have been so naive as to think that only idiots viewed disability as an unacceptable challenge. He remembered how he had borne the insult delivered to his brother as much as if it had been directly delivered to him. Annalise might have been attractive and clever, but neither of those attributes could have made up for her basic inability to step out of the box. Her neatly laid out future had not included hitches of that nature. Over the years, he had bumped into her, sometimes coincidentally, occasionally at her request. She never mentioned Dominic but she always made a point of informing him how much she had grown up. The fact that Violet naturally and without trying had endeared herself to his mother and his brother counted for a great deal.
‘You’ve asked me to marry you because I get along with your family?’
‘Well...that’s not the complete story. There’s also the incredible sex...’ He scanned her flushed cheeks with lingering appreciation.
‘So let me get this straight. You’ve asked me to marry you because I’ve been accepted by your family, because we get along and because we’re good in bed together. It’s not exactly the marriage proposal I dreamed of as a girl.’ She kept her voice steady and calm. Inside, her heart was hammering as she absorbed the implications of his proposal. This wasn’t about love or a starry-eyed desire to walk off into the sunset with her, holding hands, knowing that they were soulmates, destined to be together for the rest of their lives. This was a marriage proposal of convenience.
‘And what when we get tired of one another? I mean, lust doesn’t last for ever.’ And without love as its foundation, whatever was left when the lust bit disappeared would crumble into dust. When that happened, would he decide that being stuck in a loveless marriage was maybe not quite the sensible option he had gone for? Would his eyes begin to wander? Would he see that other options were available? Of course he would and where would that leave her? Nursing even more heartbreak than if she walked away now with her pride and dignity intact.
‘I don’t like hypothesising.’ Why hadn’t she just said yes? He was giving her what any other woman on the planet would want. He knew that without a shred of conceit. He had a lot to offer and he was offering it to her, so what was with the hesitancy and the thousand and one questions? Would he have to fill out an informal questionnaire? To find out if he passed with flying colours?
‘I know, but sometimes it’s important to look ahead,’ Violet persisted stubbornly. In some strange way, this marriage proposal was the nail in the coffin of their relationship. At least as far as she was concerned. She might have wondered aloud where they were going, but she knew, deep down, that she would have been persuaded to carry on, just as she knew that, in carrying on, she would have clung to the belief that her love was returned, that it was just a question of time. She would have allowed hope to propel her forward. But he had proposed what would be a sham of a marriage and she knew, now, exactly where she stood with him.
He liked her well enough but primarily he liked her body. And the added bonus was that she got along with Eleanor and Dominic. When the scales were balanced, he doubtless thought