‘Thank you—I’m fine now.’

Peta forced herself to say it. She had to say something to fill the uncomfortable silence that had descended. Something to distract him from his awkward question. How could anyone be cold in the superbly heated, luxurious bathroom of Liam Farrell’s home?

But of course it hadn’t been cold that had made her shiver so revealingly. Instead it had been the disturbed state of her thoughts.

‘I’d better go and dry my hair or I’ll never be ready in time.’

The ease with which he let her go only added to her confusion and mental discomfort. She had been prepared for an argument, some sort of protest at least. This wasn’t the Liam she knew so well. This Liam was in a very different mood from the one she’d assumed he was in from the moment he’d first made that provocative remark about the shower, pushing her to reply in similar vein.

She’d expected that he would try to kiss her, to hold her close. To assert once more the powerful sexual attraction that always flared between them. The same attraction that had had her whole body throbbing in response simply to the sound of his voice. And she had been prepared to handle that.

But not this strange, almost cold indifference.

Something was very wrong here. Something that she had been aware of for days, like the throbbing ache of a tooth that needed filling and wouldn’t stop nagging.

Dear God, please let it not be that he had guessed the way she was feeling.

‘What’s wrong?’

The question came so unexpectedly from behind that she actually jumped like a startled cat as she padded her way, bare-footed, across the rich bronze carpet towards her dressing gown.

‘Wrong? What do you mean, wrong?’

Her voice was uneven and rough, revealing her inner turmoil, and the hand that reached out to grasp her hair-brush was not perfectly steady.

‘How could anything be wrong?’

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

Unhelpful as well as enigmatic.

‘Liam, I’m fine.’

His response was an inarticulate sound of sceptical disbelief that had her clamping her fingers too tightly round the brush handle, the skin showing white at the knuckles.

‘All right!’

Impetuously she swung round to face him, then immediately wished she hadn’t as she met the full force of those brilliant, stunning green eyes head-on.

‘All right,’ she tried again, less forcefully this time as a new wave of tension gripped her. ‘Seeing as you obviously don’t believe me—why don’t you say what’s wrong? Why don’t you explain what made you ask that question in the first place?’

His shrug was a masterpiece of controlled indifference, one that seemed to shake off her question as totally unimportant. But the casual nonchalance of the gesture was belied by the laser-like intensity of his gaze, the burning focus of those deep eyes on her face. Peta shifted uncomfortably under its scrutiny, feeling as if a much-needed protective layer had been scraped away from her skin, leaving her disturbingly raw and vulnerable.

‘I would have thought that today of all days you’d be feeling happy and relaxed. That you’d be looking forward to the party tonight with excitement and anticipation. Instead I find that you’re nervy and distant…’

She was distant? What about the way he had been the past few weeks? What had made him so difficult, so unapproachable, just at the moment when she had most needed to try and talk to him?

The question almost escaped Peta but she bit it back just in time.

‘And if I am distant as you say—have you ever considered that it might just be the party tonight that’s making me feel that way?’

Another rough sound of disbelief escaped him and he actually shook his proud head in dismissal of her comment.

‘Oh, come on, darling! You know that isn’t true—I know it can’t be true.’

‘And why not?’

‘You know why.’

‘Tell me.’

Liam moved away from the doorway at last, strolling across the room to stand beside her, looking down into her wary blue eyes.

‘I’ve never seen you nervous—or even unsettled before any sort of social event. Nothing fazes you. And especially not tonight.’

‘No.’ Peta shook her head, sending her drying dark hair flying around her face.

‘No?’

That sceptical note was back in his voice.

‘No, nothing fazes you—or no, nothing’s wrong?’

‘No—not “especially not tonight”,’ Peta quoted back at him. ‘I don’t see why you think I should be so easy in my mind about tonight.’

‘And why the hell not?’

It was clear that his grip on his temper was wearing thin. The relaxed, drawling voice was becoming rather ragged at the edges.

‘There can’t be anything to worry you about tonight.’

‘Oh, can’t there?’

‘No—it’s a happy event. You know everyone who’s going to be here—family and friends. They’re all coming to help us celebrate—’

‘And that’s just it!’ Peta broke in, unable to hold the words back any more.

The double meaning of that ‘happy event’ was more than she could bear. She knew what ‘happy event’ Liam had been anticipating by this stage in their marriage. She was supposed to be pregnant by now. It was what they had both wanted at the start. What she still wanted, but not in the way she had originally thought.

‘What’s just it?’ Liam frowned impatient confusion. ‘Peta, you’re not making any sense.’

‘Maybe that’s because none of this makes sense.’

Peta began dragging the brush through her long dark hair, the rough, abrupt movements mirroring the edginess of her thoughts. The bristles caught in a couple of tangled knots but she didn’t pause, wincing faintly as she tugged them down.

‘What the—?’

Reaching out, he caught hold of her hand, stilling the nervy gesture with a grip so strong that she could do nothing but submit to his control.

But she didn’t have to look at him. She couldn’t look at him for fear of what she might read in his face. And so she kept her own head stubbornly averted, staring fixedly down at the carpet as if fascinated by the sight of his polished black leather handmade boots planted firmly on the thick carpet.

Staking his claim again. The memory of her own thoughts earlier came unwillingly to her mind, dousing the fire of her mutiny like a bucket of cold water tossed over a leaping flame.

‘Peta, sweetheart, are you going to explain just what is going on inside that delightful head of yours? What is it that is bugging you—and why?’

That ‘sweetheart’ was just too much. He used it casually, easily, without even thinking. He didn’t mean it. Not really. It was just a word, one he dropped into conversation without a care. It was what people—outsiders—expected a husband to say to his wife.

But not this husband. Not to this wife.

And she knew he never thought about the effect it might have. That he never for one moment considered how she might feel, hearing him direct that apparently loving term at her and knowing that it had no place anywhere inside their marriage.

Because love had no part at all in this relationship between herself and Liam.

At least, it had had none at the very beginning. The arrangement was a marriage of convenience from start to finish. No emotions involved in any way. Or, rather, that was how it was supposed to have been. How it had always been on Liam’s side. And on hers at first—at the very beginning.

But not now. Now things had changed. Changed so fundamentally that she was no longer convinced that she could continue with this marriage in the way they had decided just over a year ago. She didn’t think she could continue with it in any way at all. Not unless things changed in a way that just didn’t seem possible.

She had told herself that she would do as Liam wanted. Play it his way. But it was getting so much harder with every day that passed. Because she hadn’t stuck to the guidelines, the rules they had so carefully laid out from the moment they had agreed to this marriage of convenience. Instead, she had committed the worst sin of all.