Page 43 of Mistletoe Mistake
“It matters to me because it matters to you. I'd just like to know why. Whatever you say, whatever the reason is, it won't change the fact that I want to do this. You know so much about me; I just want to know you a little bit too.”
He turned to face me with a hesitancy in his eyes that I had never seen there before. “I can understand that but I don't often talk about my personal life. With anyone, I mean.”
“What are you afraid of?” I asked gently, trying to find the root of his misgivings. “That I would judge you for it? I'm not really in any position to pass judgement, given my own situation.”
A smile tugged at his lips and he inclined his head in agreement. “That's true, I suppose.”
“And if you're worried I would tell anyone else, I promise you, that's the last thing I would do. I know better than most what it's like to have strangers speculating about your personal business, and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. For all your flaws, Cole, you're hardly my worst enemy.”
The fire sparked in his eyes again, taking up my challenge. “You haven't even given me a chance yet. You don't know exactly what kind of enemy I could be.”
That was more like it, and I grinned in response. “If you're as good an enemy as you are a lover, then I definitely want to stay on your good side.”
He smiled back at me, temporarily diverted, but a moment later, he sighed, his head dropping. “Hardly anyone knows this story, Gemma. I don't want you to think less of me when you hear it.”
The idea that he would even think that sent a wave of tenderness rushing through me. Without thinking, I reached out to take his hand, holding it within both of mine.
“Cole, you have no idea how much it means to me that you didn't treat me any differently today than you did yesterday. In the last few months, there's been hardly anyone who did that. I've had people coddle me, patronize me, give me loads of unwanted advice, or just stop talking to me altogether. You acted just the same from one day to the next, and it honestly means the world to me. I promise you that I’ll give you the same courtesy."
As he nodded, it felt like I was getting through to him, so I decided to tease him as a final push. He seemed to like my teasing, when the timing was right.
“I mean, unless you took over a small country somewhere. Or turned a bunch of Dalmatians into coats. Or you're responsible for my favourite takeaway restaurant closing down.”
“Those are the first things you think of?” Amusement pulled at his lips, just as I hoped. I much preferred that to his uncertainty.
I winked at him, doing my best to ease his discomfort. “Those are just off the top of my head. Unless you really want me to keep guessing, you might as well just tell me.”
His hand still rested on mine, and he wrapped his fingers around me, taking control again. It felt comforting and familiar in a way that didn't quite make sense given how short a time I'd known him.
“Actually, in some ways, it's not so different from your story.” He looked down at our joined hands as he spoke rather than at my face. “Without the reality TV show part, at least.”
I tried to guess what he meant. “You were stuck in a passionless engagement arranged at birth too?”
I got just a flash of his heart-stopping smile. “Okay, maybe notthatsimilar, but I was engaged, yes. To the wrong person, just like you were.”
That did surprise me. I had no idea he’d been engaged and a dozen questions rushed into my head. Had he actually been in love? How long were they engaged for? What happened? It took a moment to settle on which question to ask first. “When was this?”
“Four years ago. We were together for a year before we got engaged, but the engagement only lasted three weeks.”
That certainly contrasted with my own six-year engagement, and I tried to imagine the worst case scenario. Maybe if I suggested something awful, whatever he told me wouldn't sound so bad in comparison. “Did something happen to her? Some kind of accident?”
As I hoped, he quickly shook his head. “No, nothing like that. She's still alive, as far as I know, but I haven't exactly kept tabs on her. I haven't seen her since she left.”
So, she left; that answered a few questions, but created many more. “Why did she leave?”
He raised his eyes to meet mine and in their dark depths, I could see both anger and a hint of sadness. "The better question is why she was ever there. I thought we met by chance, that our love story grew naturally, just like any other, but it didn’t. She played me from the very beginning."
One word stood out amongst everything he had just said. "You were in love with her?"
His lips curled again, but this time in self-deprecation. "Hard to believe, right? But yes: I was completely, utterly, stupidly in love."
I squeezed his hand a little tighter. "So, what happened?"
"It's a long story, but the short version is that a few months after we met, she convinced me to hire her brother as my personal assistant. That meant he had access to a lot of my personal information."
An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach as I began to see where this might be heading.
"Once we got engaged, I set her up with her own account to handle the wedding plans, setting up our new house, and so on, and I linked the account to one of mine. That's when they worked together to transfer money from my accounts into hers."
