“Tessa, marriage is about need. It’s about two people needing each other. You recognise that. You need me. I need you. To the exclusion of everyone else. It’s really that simple.”
Tessa looked at him blankly. She had never thought of it like that before. In a way he was right. Grant had said he loved her, but he had never needed her. Not exclusively. And then there were her parents. Poles apart, but each leaning on the other for their needs. Sue and her husband... There were others. A long list of them. And this new perspective fitted them all.
“Perhaps you’re right, sir,” she said.
“Of course, I’m right. We need each other. Exclusively. We get married. Simple.” There was a ring of deep satisfaction in his voice. Problem solved.
No, it wasn’t, Tessa thought. For one thing, she didn’t like his switch-on switch-off inner mechanism. That had to stop if she was going to marry him. He had given her what she wanted this weekend. Having experienced that, she wasn’t going to accept anything less. Why should she? Surely a wife was more important than a weekend lover.
She looked up at him defiantly. “I don’t think you would like my conditions, sir.”
“Like what?”
“You will treat me lovingly all the time,” she stipulated firmly.
One eyebrow rose. “Regardless of how I feel?”
“Regardless of how you feel. Lovingly. All the time.”
“What kind of deal is that? Where’s the compromise?” he demanded.
If he thought he could make their marriage a business deal, he could think again, Tessa thought furiously. How could she have fallen in love with such an impossible man?
“There’s no compromise, sir. That’s the deal!”
He frowned. He turned dark brooding eyes to the shoreline. It was obvious that he didn’t like being cornered. He was probably weighing up how much he wanted her against how much he didn’t want to put himself out, Tessa thought cynically.
He seemed to brace himself as he turned to her. “I can do it,” he said decisively. “I can do anything I set my mind to. Of course, I can do it.”
His hands fell to her waist and he started kissing her forehead, trailing his lips around her temples as he drew her closer to him.
“There are a few other minor problems,” Tessa said.
“I’m showing you how loving I can be,” he murmured, planting warm kisses on her hair.
“You’re arrogant and overbearing...”
“Trivial,” he scoffed, nuzzling her ear.
“Demanding and impatient...”
“What does that matter?” He transferred attention to her nose, kissing the tilted end of it.
“Thoughtless and self-centred...”
“Details,” he said. “Mere details.” And closed her eyes with more gentle kisses.
“Uncaring of what others think and feel...”
His head jerked back. “Now you’ve gone too far,” he said sternly. “That is not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “I care a lot about how you feel when I do this.” He tilted her head so he could kiss her on the lips. It seemed to last forever. Not just sensual, although it was certainly that. Loving. He had to want her an awful lot, Tessa thought with a deep thrill of pleasure.
Was she in love? Well on the way, she thought. Just the slightest bit more encouragement and she could be head over heels. She kissed him with all the fervour swelling from her heart.
He leaned into her, moaning his desire.
“We could go below,” she suggested.
He took a very deep breath. His eyes glittered with triumphant satisfaction. “And leave this boat floating around the river? That’s irresponsible. You’ll have to learn to control your desires, my girl.”
Tessa laughed at the payback for making him control his desires. “Yes, sir,” she said mockingly.
“And stop calling me ‘sir.’ Use your memory bank, Stockton.”
“Yes, darling Blaize.”
“Say you’re going to marry me.”
“Are you going to stop calling me Stockton?”
“I only did that to concentrate your mind along the right path. You’ve been saying quite a lot of nos that I haven’t liked. When you say you’ll marry me I’ll call you Tessa darling. So are you or aren’t you? Be damned if I’ll ask you again!”
She took a deep breath. Her mind was singing silly exultant songs. Her heart was pitter-pattering all over the place. “I think I must be crazy,” she said slowly, “but yes, I think I will.”
“Right!” he said grimly. “And don’t think I’m going to let you slide out of it. When I want something, Tessa darling, I get it. One way or another.”
He kissed her once more as a firm promise of that, then turned aside and switched the motors to full throttle. They roared to the marina. Tessa wondered if he was impatient to take her to bed again, but once they were docked, he hurried her off the boat and over to the car park where he quickly bundled her into a streamlined white Lamborghini.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he climbed in beside her.
He grinned. Jubilantly smug. “To your parents’ place. We are going to uncancel a wedding. A six-week engagement will suit me just fine. And naturally I intend to get your parents’ blessing.”
Tying her up. With bows, Tessa thought. She suddenly had a sinking feeling their marriage wouldn’t last very long. Blaize probably had no scruples about divorce. Relentless and ruthless, she reminded herself. He would have what he wanted from her for as long as he needed it... and then what?
Tessa heaved a deep sigh.
She would just have to take her chances and make the most of them.
At least, for a while, she would be redeemed in her mother’s eyes.
CHAPTER TEN
Blaize made no comment on her parents’ home. He helped her out of his car. The gull-wing doors were somewhat startling—not what Tessa was used to—but she hastily reminded herself that she was plunging into a lot of things she wasn’t used to in marrying Blaize Callagan.
Was she really going to marry him?
The determined look on Blaize’s face said he knew what he was doing. Tessa wondered if she knew what she was doing.
She realised, as Blaize hurried her down the path to the front door, that where and how her parents lived were totally irrelevant to him. They could have occupied a shack in the outback for all he cared. Probably her parents were irrelevant to him as well. Only one thing was relevant. Getting what he wanted. Signed, sealed and delivered. And tied up with pretty bows.