Page 89 of A Diamond Deal
‘Is it not bad luck,’ he asked thickly, ‘for the groom to see the bride before the wedding?’
‘We’re already married,’ she said, half turning, and closing the door.
He noted the twitch of her fingers. He tensed. ‘What is it?’
‘Konstantinos, I…’
His black gaze narrowed, burrowed inside the blue of hers.
‘Tell me what it is?’
Poppy looked at him. He was immaculate. His every hair combed to perfection. His grey morning suit, it all fit him like a second skin. She didn’t want to corner him. She didn’t want to fight. But it made her sick.
All these lies.
‘Konstantinos—’ she dragged in a breath until it fortified the walls of her lungs ‘—I can’t do it.’
‘Can’t do what?’
‘I can’t go out there.’
The pulse in his clean-shaven jaw ticked. ‘You are nervous?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Not of them.’
‘Then of whom?’
She bit her lip. Shewasnervous of the cameras—the eyes—but that wasn’t why she wasn’t going out there.
‘I’m nervous about telling you the truth.’
He cocked a brow. ‘The truth?’
‘It’s a risk,’ she said. ‘I know that now. I knew it when I was a girl. That’s why I never said it. I never told her. My mum. I made myself believe I was happy. Happy for my father to just be there. But I’m not happy, Konstantinos. I’m not happy to live a lie just because it’s easier any more.’
Dark brows drew together. ‘Who is telling lies here,agape?’
‘Me,’ she confessed, and she felt it. Something lifting from her shoulders. Easing the pressure from her heart. ‘I know if I tell you the truth it could ruin everything. But…’ Flashes of being all alone without him, of learning to sleep alone, of missing him tore through her. ‘I have to tell you.’
‘Poppy—’
‘Please,’ she interrupted. ‘I can’t… I can’t keep lying. Putting on a show. All my life, I’ve put on a show for others. I’ve lied again and again. And if I go out there, I’ll still be a liar. I’ll be lying to you, because it wouldn’t be a show for me.’ Air, too shallow, stuttered in between her tight lips. ‘It will be real forme.’
He stepped back. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I want a real marriage. A marriage we both deserve to have. A marriage with all the foundations we promised to each other. Loyalty, protection,andlove, Konstantinos. We can have love, too.’
‘I don’t wantthat,’ he growled. ‘I never did.’
Poppy searched his eyes, his facial features, but there was nothing. Not a frown, not a dip of his lips. He was pretending as if what she’d said hadn’t touched him. But she knew him now. She knew how well he’d taught himself to hide his emotions. Control them. But underneath the veneer he’d taught himself to hide behind, he was—
‘You’re scared.’
‘I’m not scared,’ he countered, his voice too stiff, too barren of anything.
He wouldn’t fool her now. She didn’t believe it. His indifference.
‘I’m scared, too,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve always been scared. Scared to trust you. I was scared you’d betray me like my father. But I don’t want to be scared any more. I trust you. I know we’d never hurt each other on purpose… What happened before. We couldn’t help it. I understand why. Our parents. But I’m not them and neither are you. We get to choose now. We get to have this. We deserve it, Konstantinos, to have the family neither of us had with each other. Together. You and me.’
