WORTH THE RISK

“Stability isn’t the same thing as love,” Tyler interrupted her. He should know. It was a challenge to remain relaxed in his chair, but he did it. “And I think you’ll find that friendship, however intense, is no substitute for passion.”

Interestingly, that flush seemed to deepen. She busied herself with her mug of tea, once again seeming…flustered.

“You would be the expert on that,” she said softly. But distinctly.

Tyler hadn’t touched his tea. He thought longingly of the bottle of whiskey he had inside, aged to perfection, but he knew nothing took the edge off the Lexi effect. Nothing ever had, nothing ever would.

“You know me.” He forced the easy grin that would make most of the people who knew him do a double take. Because Tyler Connelly was edgy, not easy. But Lexi didn’t know that Tyler. “As long as they leave happy.”

“She seemed very happy.” Lexi nodded in the vague direction of the street. “The one downstairs.”

“Mission accomplished, then.”

“What exactly is it that you do?” she asked, and her gaze was direct. “To her. To them. In general.”

He kept the grin going. “Do you want me to draw you a manual?”

“In all the years I’ve known you,” she said, as if she was carefully sounding out her words, “no matter how many women you sleep with or if they overlap, they always leave delighted. And thanking you. Why?”

“That’s a bit hurtful.” He lifted a brow. “Surely even you can appreciate what a piece of eye candy I am, Lexi.”

A shameless attempt to get her to ogle him, he was well aware. But Lexi didn’t take the bait. She kept her gaze on his, which was both disappointing and arousing, a sensation he was all too used to.

“There are a lot of good-looking men, Tyler. But with you it’s something different.”

“Charm?”

“There are a lot of charmers, too.”

Tyler had been studying Lexi for years. Today she had shadows beneath her eyes, which he blamed on the long flight. She looked tired, but it was more than that. More than travel, clearly. It was the way she was holding her head, deliberately, as if fighting back some kind of strong emotion. She seemed more fragile than usual.

Tyler had once been called a grinning bloody shark by a business associate—and it hadn’t been meant as an insult—because he could smile nicely while eviscerating his opponents. Because he’d been raised up in a bleak, hard place and it was in him, too, that bleakness. That hardness. It was what made him rich. And he liked his sex the way he liked his many business deals and everything else in this life he’d built entirely with his own hands—completely under his control.

There had only ever been one shred of softness in him. Her. And she had no clue. It was almost funny, really.

“Did you really fly all the way to Olkfield to quiz me about my sex life?” he asked.

“I’m getting married,” she said, and he didn’t make a face or roll his eyes at the unnecessary obviousness of that statement, because she was looking at him so intently. “And I know that many women in my position don’t intend to keep their wedding vows, but I do. Or I don’t see the point of being married.”

He was long past the point where mentions of her boyfriends, or dates or various other relationships with lesser men got to him—but that didn’t mean he wanted to sit around and talk about her marital vows. Though he would.

“Is he planning to extend you the same courtesy?”

“He said he would.” Lexi shrugged. It was a sharp, almost bitter sort of movement. “But I think we both know that’s easier said than done. For him, I mean.”

“A promise is a promise, Lexi.”

“I don’t think he cares,” she said, then, and not as if it hurt her. As if it was a simple, small truth. “You’re the only one I can say this to. But Victor is a very cold man. I think if he decides to shut himself off, he will, and that’s that.”

“He sounds grand.”

The look she sent him then was reproving, but that was an improvement, to his mind. “Part of me thinks that this is the best it can be, given the situation.” She propped her tea mug on her curled-up legs. “Most people with our sort of arrangement wouldn’t dream of expecting fidelity. It’s a lovely bonus.”

Tyler rubbed a hand over his face. “If you say so.”

“I wouldn’t want to be embarrassed.” She frowned down at her mug. “And you know Lily. I think that’s as much embarrassment as Victor ever wanted. I don’t think he would cause a scandal.”

“Are you trying to tell me that your man doesn’t satisfy you?” Tyler asked, possibly with more edge in his voice than was needed. “Because there are books you could read, or you could have rung up, Lexi. No need to go to such lengths.”

“Oh, I don’t know if he… I mean, we’ve never…” She scowled at him. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“You’re going to marry a man who you’ve never had sex with.” He shook his head, though it kicked at him. Or maybe that was his heart, trying to crack his ribs wide open. “I’ll be honest, there’s a lot I don’t understand about you. But this might take the bloody cake.”

“It wasn’t as if the dates we went on were romantic,” she protested. “And then he proposed, very quickly, which would be strange and off-putting if things were romantic—but this was never about that. So why not go along quickly? And what’s the point of trying it out ahead of time? It isn’t going to make a difference. Good or bad, we’re stuck with it either way.”

He wanted to break something. “For fuck’s sake.”

“I didn’t come all this way to debate whether or not I should marry Victor. I’ve already agreed to do it. It’s a done deal.”

“You do know what year it is? Fathers don’t get to go around selling off daughters. You have a say.”

“Of course I have a say.”

Tyler beat down his temper enough to notice she didn’t look upset. She looked annoyed. At him.

“If I didn’t want to get married, I wouldn’t. It’s not as if my father would force me down the aisle with a gun to my back. You’ve met him. You know he’s not like that.”