CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Okay, spill. We all heard you yelling and slamming doors this morning.”
I slid my gaze beneath my sunglasses toward Amelia. We were lying on loungers under an umbrella on the beach. Griff and Quentin had just walked away to buy us ice creams upon Amelia’s orders. Now I understood the order. She wanted privacy to grill me. “You heard that?”
“Yes. Hard not to. We didn’t hear what you were yelling about though?”
I let the hurt I was hiding from Griff out. “He was mad at me for the nightgown and when I hinted that maybe we could solve our sexual frustration by giving into our attraction he said no. I asked him what he intended to do about his frustration then and he…”
“He what?” she asked warily.
“He said that if he needed to look elsewhere for satisfaction he would be discreet.”
“That rat bastard!” She threw herself off the lounger, with apparently every intention of killing my new husband. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Amelia, stop,” I begged, swinging my legs off the lounger. I pushed my sunglasses up off my face so she could see the gravity in my expression. “I told him I’d do the same and although he didn’t respond verbally it was clear he didn’t like the idea.”
“The door slam?”
“The door slam.”
She sat back down on the lounger. “Why is he being so stubborn?”
“I think you’re right.” I sighed. “I don’t think he’s just worried about complicating our business arrangement. I don’t… I know I don’t have a lot of experience with men but I still think our chemistry is unusually strong. And I think he’s afraid of it.”
Amelia reached over to squeeze my hand in sympathy. “What are you going to do?”
“When they come back, can you take Quentin for a walk so I can talk to Griffin? We need to hash this out.”
“I can definitely do that.”
And she did. As soon as the men returned with our ice cream, Amelia grabbed Quentin’s hand and said she fancied a walk along the beach. He didn’t get a chance to respond before she led him away. It was a Sunday, end of summer, and we were enjoying a particularly hot September so the beach was fairly crowded but we’d created space between us and the nearest loungers giving us privacy.
I took a small lick of my strawberry ice cream as Griffin sat down on Amelia’s lounger with his. “What flavor did you get?”
“Rocky road.”
I studied his profile as he gazed out at the water. It glistened tranquilly in the sun at odds with the mood between us. A wave of emotion toward him overwhelmed me as it sunk in that this man was legally my husband.
“We’re officially husband and wife,” I said.
He turned his head toward me. “So we are.”
I took another lick of ice cream as I gathered the courage to confront him about our argument. “This morning was interesting.”
“Which part?”
“The part where we argued about our sexual attraction.”
His sunglasses masked his expression but I could see the eyebrow that quirked above the top of his shades. “For a woman who still has a tendency to blush at the slightest innuendo you’re certainly not afraid to push a touchy subject with me.”
Ignoring the censor in his tone, I shrugged. “I don’t like drama and subterfuge.”
“How unfortunate for someone being paid to be my wife.”
“But I’m not being paid.”
He grunted.
“That’s why you wanted to pay me? Not to seal the deal but so if we did sleep together you’d be able to turn around and say ‘well, we only did it because you’re being paid to be my wife’.”
“That’s not true,” he snapped. “I wanted to pay you so there was an employer/employee barrier between us that would remind me sleeping together is a bad idea.”
“Because the barrier worked out for you last time?”
“Don’t push me, Scarlett. I’m lounging around on a fucking beach when I should be answering emails and working. The last thing I need is this pointless conversation between us.”
“Then go,” I huffed. “Go work. I don’t need you to force yourself to spend time with me to keep up this ruse. Amelia and Quentin are aware of the truth so there’s no need for you to pretend to want to be here with me.”
“Why are you being so bloody antagonistic?”
“Because you hurt me!”
He tensed.
And I inwardly cursed.
Why the hell did I say that?
His voice was low, quiet and intense as he asked, “I hurt you?”
I flinched and my shoulders rose toward my ears as I tried to make myself small, as if I could somehow hide from him if I succeeded. “Never mind.”
“No. Not never mind. Explain.”
Glaring out at the water I bit out, “You basically inferred that any desire you felt for me could be assuaged by another woman.”
He was annoyingly quiet.
“What if I said my desire for you could be assuaged by another man? That his hands on me, his body… they’d feel just as good, if not better, than yours.”
Griff’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he avoided looking at me. Finally he replied, “This is why we need to keep our relationship free of sex. You’re already complicating this marriage.”
Ugly, burning jealousy churned in my gut. “Are you going to sleep with someone else while we’re married?” I pressed.
He finally stared back at me and I wished I could see his eyes. “You’re my wife on paper but not in reality. I don’t owe you that answer.”
Renewed anguish suffused me.
If he wanted me as badly as I wanted him he wouldn’t keep fighting this. It would be too much. He would feel too much. So obviously he didn’t.
I needed these feelings for him gone. I needed the want of him out of me. To flush this desire out of my veins and erase the memories of his touch that were burned on my brain.
“You’re right.” I nodded as I stood up, wanting to get as far away from his as possible. I wanted the truth and now I had it. Amelia was wrong. I was wrong. I was just a naïve young woman who knew nothing about men. “And I expect you won’t question me about the men I take to bed either.”
Griff shot to his feet, throwing the ice cream cup onto the lounger so he could grab my arms. He shook me gently. “Don’t. Don’t act like this. I respect and like you, Scarlett, but I do so because I thought you weren’t the kind of woman who played games with a man.”
I shrugged his arms off. “I’m not.”
“So a woman who has only slept with three men in her life is planning on taking many to bed now?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh yes, what was it you said this morning. I broke the seal.”
“I was hurt this morning.” I shook my head sadly. “I’m not saying this to play games or to make it tit for tat. I want you out of me,” I whispered, hating that he could make so vulnerable. “And if I can’t get my attraction to you out of me on my own, then I’ll find another man who can erase you.”
Griff’s breathing shuddered out of him at my words. I couldn’t see his eyes but his lips parted as if he was stunned. Unhappily so. He turned his head away and I saw that tell-tale muscle in his jaw tick. “Fine.” His tone was ice cold. “You do that.”
Tears burned in my eyes and I was extremely grateful for my sunglasses.
“Tell Amelia and Quentin I’ve gone back to the inn to do some work.”
He left me.
By the time our friends returned from their walk I’d gathered my feelings back inside myself and poured a metaphorical layer of concrete over them.
I was never going to make myself vulnerable to Griffin Mandeville again.