Two-Week Wife. Miranda Lee
wedding and said it was ours.’
Adam was shaking his head in utter disbelief. ‘How, in God’s name, did you pull that off? You weren’t even wearing white that day!’
‘My bridesmaid dress was pale pink and could easily pass for a wedding dress. Besides, Mum wouldn’t have expected me to have a traditional wedding with a big white dress. And you looked suitably bridegroomy in your best man outfit.
‘Luckily with it being your sister’s wedding, all your family were there. And on top of that, we had a lot of shots taken together, being partners for the day. Mum thought you looked very handsome, by the way. Oh, and remember those queen-sized sheets she sent, and which I gave you for your bed? They...er....they were our wedding present.’
Adam’s hand clenched tightly around the glass he was holding. Fury that she would perpetrate this fiasco without even consulting him had his blood bubbling with heated anger along his veins. Naturally she hadn’t expected to get caught. She’d probably thought her poor mum would safely pass away before her outrageous lies came to light.
That was always the way with Bianca. She never thought things through to all their possible eventualities and consequences. She always just plunged into some mad caper or other, without worrying or working out how it might affect others.
Never had this been more evident than on the occasion she’d come to him at the age of seventeen and asked him to relieve her of her virginity. Not for reasons of romance, mind. Simply out of curiosity. And she was tired, she’d said, of being the only girl in her group who hadn’t done it. Tired of having to defend her lack of male admirers.
Back then, boys hadn’t gone for Bianca all that much. Of course, she’d always thought it was because of her lack of boobs, but that hadn’t been so at all. It had simply been because they were used to treating her like a mate, not an object of male desire.
He’d been the only boy in school who’d fancied her like mad. And she’d known it. What she hadn’t known, when she’d asked this favour of him, was that he’d been a virgin too, back then. A bit of an embarrassment, really, being a male virgin at eighteen. His mates had used to rag him about it all the time.
He cringed now to think of the total mess he’d made of ‘relieving’ Bianca of her virginity—and himself of his own. He’d been so bloody nervous. Terrified, in fact. He’d been scared of hurting her, scared of coming too soon, scared of not being able to get the damned condom on properly.
The act itself had turned into an absolute disaster, with most of his fears coming to pass. In the end, he had hurt her, and it had all been over too soon. As for the damned condom...he had no idea how that had eventually assumed its rightful position. No doubt more by accident than design.
What should have been the most marvellous moment of his life had deteriorated into being the most embarrassing and definitely the most humiliating.
He could still recall the various expressions on her face during the ten-second event. Pain had been followed by a few moments of frowning frustration, culminating in something even worse... relief when the act had come to a very rapid conclusion, obviously without her experiencing one single moment of pleasure, let alone satisfaction.
Afterwards she’d been uncharacteristically silent, and he’d skulked off home feeling utterly crushed and totally deflated.
The only good to come out of that night had been that the experience had seemed to turn Bianca off sex for the next few years. She’d probably concluded it wasn’t worth bothering about, till a supermacho martial arts instructor, whose class she’d enrolled in during her last year at uni, had taken her uninterest in him as the ultimate challenge and then proceeded to show her that sex was nothing like what she’d experienced that night. He’d apparendy been a fantastic lover, with a body any girl would drool over and a technique to match.
From that moment she’d been hooked—not only on the pleasures of the flesh, but on that sort of male. After Mr Black Belt, she was programmed to believe that arousal and satisfaction were synonymous with an ultra-fit, muscle-bound body and a super-stud mentality.
Adam had always wanted the opportunity to show Bianca he was no longer the sexual klutz he’d been at eighteen, but she would never give him that opportunity. Her mind was fixed against him, her preconceptions set in concrete. He’d thought he’d come to terms with this, but now he realised he hadn’t. Not for a moment.
He wanted her now more than ever, and could not bear the thought of spending a single second in the same bed as her without being able to touch her.
Which was what she would surely ask of him if he agreed to go along with this masquerade of a marriage. She would expect him to allow her to climb into his bed every night for the duration of her mother’s stay. And she would also expect him not to lay a single hand on her.
Such a prospect was beyond the pale. He would not do it. He was a man, not a mouse, and it was high time Bianca recognised that fact.
Uncurling his white-knuckled fingers, he placed the empty glass down on a side-table and stood up.
‘No, Bianca,’ he said, his face stony, his voice quite cold. ‘No.’
And he stalked off down the hallway towards his room.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHAT do you mean...no?’ she shouted after him as he disappeared down the hallway.
‘I mean no!’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘I won’t go along with it. You married us, Bianca. Now you’ll just have to divorce us.’
Bianca gaped after him for a moment before snapping her mouth shut. Exasperation mixed with irritation as she rolled her eyes. She’d had a feeling he was going to be difficult about this. And she’d damned well been right!
Underneath, however, she still felt confident she could bring him round. Michelle always said she could twist Adam around her little finger. Bianca wasn’t fond of that phrase, but she could not deny there was some truth in it. Just as there was some truth in Michelle’s belief that her brother was still in love with his old schoolfriend.
Bianca sometimes felt guilty about taking advantage of Adam’s lingering and largely unrequited passion for her. She’d shamelessly used his affection for her in the past. She supposed she was still doing it to a degree.
Though, to be fair to herself, she’d warned him never to hope things would change. She loved him to death but she did not desire him. It was as simple as that.
Actually, now that she thought about it, she wasn’t so sure Adam was in love with her any more. There’d been a steady stream of girlfriends paraded through this place since she’d come to live here a year ago—all blonde bimbo types, with legs that went up to their armpits and busts which made Bianca go green with envy. If he was pining after her, then he was making a darned good fist of hiding it.
This realisation piqued her somewhat. She’d become used to the notion that Adam was still in love with her. It had become a secret balm to soothe her battered ego on occasions, to reassure her that she was worthy of being loved, that there was more to her than being just the flighty piece of goods several men had called her.
Bianca frowned dissatisfaction at this train of thought. It seemed she just wasn’t ready yet to give up Adam’s status as her secret admirer. Knowing he was always there for her was the one steadying factor in her life—he was a rock she could rely on when all else failed.
A type of panic began to set in. She could not bear the thought that he might one day cut her out of his life. For ever. She’d be lost without him. Yet if he wasn’t in love with her any more, then it was bound to happen one day...
Maybe he isn’t still madly in love with me, she amended in desperation. But he does care about me.
Just as she cared about him. Deeply. He’d touched something in her from that first day at kindergarten, when she’d spied him in a corner crying his heart out. All during their school days