Jessie's Expecting. Кейси Майклс

beginning to see that she made the right choice? What does that really mean, Matt? This isn’t as if she chose fish over meat or red wine over white. This was supposedly to be a marriage, two people in love, remember?”

      “We were compatible in many ways, Jessica,” Matt answered, backpedaling into truth, at least part-way, knowing his words made him sound cold, logical and entirely too businesslike to be a loving groom. “We had the same goals.”

      “Goals? How romantic, I’m sure. Did you ever love my sister, or was she some sort of business deal? Now that she’s found a better one, you’re beginning to see she made the right move, the right merger? That’s pathetic! Come on, Matt, tell me. Am I being irrational to begin thinking now that your reasons for marrying my sister were pathetic? That my worry for your feelings, my following you to the gazebo that night was even worse than pathetic? God! Does my sister know how lucky she was, to escape your idea of marriage?”

      Was she being irrational, as she’d asked him? He didn’t think so.

      Matt looked at Jessica for a long time, trying to remember that she was pregnant and that pregnant women could be irrational. It was just that Jessica Chandler had never been irrational. She was the calmest, most levelheaded woman he’d ever met. She was even being rational now, in some twisted way—using both her intellect and her emotions to come to logical conclusions that made him look less than terrific.

      Yes, Jessica had always been logical, rational. Until the night in the gazebo, when she had shocked him with her gentle giving, her warm passion.

      Logical. Until this moment, when she had just about accused him of being a cold, heartless man who’d proposed to Maddy because it made good business sense, without really caring for her at all. Or did she really believe he was that cold, that calculating? Had all the reasons she’d come to him, all that they’d both felt—at least, he had felt it—that night in the gazebo, evaporated from her mind, to be replaced with this low opinion of him?

      Didn’t she know him at all? Didn’t he think he knew her?

      He still recognized the Jessica he knew, the Jessica he admired, the Jessica he had fallen in love with, the Jessica who had her eyes set on corporate success, her all-consuming career.

      But here she was, sounding like a woman, looking like a woman—very much like a woman—and confounding the hell out of him as he sought to protect her with lies and damning partial truths he now couldn’t take back.

      Stupid! Had he always been this clumsy? Maybe the all-American Boy Scout in him just made for a lousy liar. Very well. He’d give her a little truth and then change the subject.

      “I’m not going to answer those last questions, Jess,” he said finally, taking his empty glass to the sink, running water in it so that the pulp didn’t dry out, stick to the sides. His hands shook as he performed the small task. “In fact, I’m not going to say another word right now, because if I do, we’re going to have one hell of an argument, and that’s not why I came here. I’ll only tell you that what seemed like good reasons to marry—to both your sister and myself, by the way—no longer seemed quite so valid. Maddy called off the marriage because she loves Joe more than she felt comfortable and safe with me. She’s happy. I’m happy she’s happy. End of story. Now, tell me which is my bedroom, okay?”

      His last words threw Jessica for the proverbial loop. “Your…your bedroom? Who said you’re staying here?”

      He rather liked the sudden squeak in her voice. “Allie, for one. Ryan, for two, and Maddy, for three. As they all own equal shares with you, you’ve been outvoted. Considering that you’d probably vote against the arrangement, that is. Isn’t democracy grand?”

      Jessica fought the urge to throw her glass across the room, aimed straight at Matt’s head. Being a practical sort, she knew she’d just have to clean up the mess, both the glass and lemonade and any injury to him, and that took a lot of the satisfaction out of such a mad, impulsive gesture.

      “I don’t want you here, Matt,” she said instead, carefully putting down her glass and stepping away from it. “Does that count for anything?”

      He pretended to consider her question. “No, I don’t think it does. You shouldn’t be alone.” He’d almost added “at a time like this,” but thankfully caught himself before he could shove both feet in his mouth. “Besides, since I didn’t get to have a honeymoon, I’m overdue for a vacation. I’ve taken the whole month, by the way. Not a bad job, being the boss.”

      “A month,” Jessica repeated hollowly. “I’ll go upstairs and pack.”

      He let her take three steps toward the hall before he stopped her by saying, “Running away yet again, Jess? That’s so unlike you. Totally out of character.”

      She whirled around, fire in her eyes. “Oh, really! And how would you know what’s in character for me? You don’t know me at all!”