The Pretend Boyfriend (The Pretend Boyfriend #4)(9)
Author: Artemis Hunt

She takes his hand again. The waitress is staring at them, admiring them for the attractive couple they are. The waitress may notice that his lips are pursed and he looks none too happy, but she may assume they are having a lovers’ spat.

Delilah says, “Is what we are doing so terrible for you? You seem to be able to get it up every time without problems.”

He sighs. “I get it up every time, Delilah, with anyone. It has nothing to do with you.”

“A truly sexual being,” she purrs, stroking his knuckles in an intimate way. Under the table, she has eased her foot out of her shoe. She nudges his shin with her stockinged toes.

He squirms uncomfortably. She is getting too coupley for his taste. Even Sam doesn’t presume to get coupley, and Sam has a lot more claim than this woman.

“I like this,” she confesses. “I like being with you. I have forgotten what it’s like to truly be with you.”

“You haven’t truly been with me. What we did in college was – ” he waves a diffident hand “ – not me.”

“I know. But I still like it anyway.” She pauses. “I like it a whole lot more than I thought I would.”

He frowns. “What are you saying?”

She runs the tip of her finger down the back of his hand. “I’m saying that . . . ” she seems to choke a little “ . . . that I may want this to continue. So here’s a new deal. I’ll drop all charges against you. But on one condition.”

She raises her grey eyes to appraise him. There’s a sudden vulnerability in them that he hasn’t seen for a long time. Not since she was Adele Jankovic and bared her soul to him.

She says, “I want this. I want this to continue. I want us to be together. A couple.” He flinches at the word, and she notices this. “I want you, Brian. You owe me.”

Her face hardens.

He knows she is referring to her suicide attempt. The feeling of guilt overwhelms him again, but he tries to stave it off. No matter how guilty he was in the past, she’s using her emotional strings to blackmail him now. For this is blackmail – clear as daylight.

He swallows the lump that has bolted to his throat. “For how long will this new deal continue?”

“For as long as it takes.” Her eyes hold a gleam of something indefinable. It isn’t madness. It isn’t calculation. He realizes that she desperately wants to keep him with her.

He finds his blood running cold.

“I can’t do that,” he says. “I’m not in love with you.”

Far from it. I’m in love with Sam!

There, he said it to himself And he didn’t turn into stone.

“You were never the sort of man to ‘do’ love. So don’t begin that sort of talk now.”

“You want me to live with you. To be your lover. For keeps. There’s no timeline definition.” He is finding it hard even to live a lie for two weeks. And he’s forcing himself to do it for Sam. He shakes his head. “I can’t do that, Delilah. I can’t live like that.”

“You want to go to prison?” Her voice takes on an edge.

He shutters his eyes, and then opens them again.

“No, I don’t want to go to prison. But in prison, at least I won’t have to live a lie. So I’ll take my chances on the stand.”

Her complexion is mottled. Her voice is very cold.

“They are going to rape you in there. Someone with your face and body. You wouldn’t last a week.” She practically spits this at him.

“Maybe. But I can’t live a lie, Delilah. Surely you’d understand that.” She would be forcing him into a prison of her own devices. And even if he was out there – free in the sunshine – his mind and body would be confined in a prison every bit as claustrophobic as one with four walls and iron bars.

He can already envision it. He would be forced to come home to her every day. It wouldn’t be a home. He would be a man of his word. He wouldn’t take the ‘deal’, get her to drop the charges before the court case, and then renege on his promise. He doesn’t make promises he knows he won’t keep. He would force every fiber of his body to go through with it.

She is trembling with anger.

“You’re rejecting me,” she accuses him. “Again.”

“I can’t live a lie,” he repeats. He sees no other recourse.

“If you say ‘no’ to me right now, our deal concerning your little girlfriend is off too. I won’t drop my charges against her.”

The threat hangs between them, electrifying the air. Now his veins are like ice.

“No,” he says desperately, “we had a deal. I did everything you wanted of me.”

“The deal was for right up to the court case. You’ve only done a week of it.”

The slow boil of his indignation begins to simmer. “Come on, Delilah, leave Sam out of this. I agreed, you agreed. You’re the one who changed the goalposts. It isn’t fair.”

“What you did to me back in college wasn’t fair either,” she says in a low, angry voice. “As well as what you made me do.”

He winces again. This is his sore point where she is concerned.

“You owe me,” she repeats.

“What I did to you was rotten, I agree. I’m sorry you couldn’t deal with it. But what you did to me was totally unwarranted and illegal. You took almost everything I had. And it’s only because I’m strong enough that I’m not putting a noose around my neck.”

And it’s also because he knows he has to live for Sam.

He continues in a controlled tone, “I would pretty much consider us even. There’s no need to make me . . . and Sam . . . go on paying.”

She shakes her head.

“I love you,” she says, and her face and voice are so full of complex, painful emotions that he shudders. He has no doubt she means it too. It is obsession bordering on love, but it is love nonetheless.

He says gently, “You think you love me, but you don’t. You’ve never known me. You’ve only known a caricature of me. You can’t love an ‘idea’ of a person. I’m not who you think I am. You’re trying to mold me into someone you want me to be, but I’m not that person.”

“It’s that woman, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t reply.

“It’s her,” she insists. “And I’ll be damned if I let both of you have each other. You think about it, Brian. I’ll give you two days. You and your little lovebird can go to separate prisons, or you can do the right thing and repay what you owe me.”