Surrender. Metsy Hingle

grimaced. Guilt pricked at him. Evidently the damage was worse than he had suspected. And, no doubt, Aimee would be trying to make the repairs herself, probably had been most of the day.

      It was just one more reason for him to insist that Aimee marry him. Surely, as his wife, she would accept his help. He started to ring the bell, so that Aimee could release the locks on the building’s main door and allow him to enter, but decided to try the doorknob instead. It turned on the first try, giving him complete access to the building.

      Swearing again at Aimee’s continued lack of caution, Peter started up the steep stairway leading to her apartment. The woman needed a keeper, he told himself. Yet another reason to insist she marry him. At least he would make sure she was safe-even if that only meant locking the doors.

      He turned the corner and started down the hall to Aimee’s apartment. As usual, not only was the door to her apartment unlocked, it was open.

      He stepped inside the living room, too occupied with his thoughts of Aimee to think about the memories and plans that this particular apartment held for him. He followed the haphazard trail of how-to manuals that led from the living room to the kitchen. Stooping down, he retrieved a worn red-covered volume entitled Save A Fortune—Do Your Own Plumbing Repairs. He shook his head, marveling at the strength of Aimee’s determination.

      “Oh, Jacques, you’re a lifesaver.”

      Peter paused at the sound of Aimee’s voice coming from the direction of her bedroom.

      “Nonsense, mon amie. It was nothing.”

      Peter went still at the distinctly male and decidedly French voice that responded.

      “But it’s true. I really don’t know what I would have done without you.”

      Anger began to simmer inside him. Anger, and some inexplicable fear of what he was about to discover. Still holding the book, Peter moved purposefully toward the bedroom. The door was open, and the bed was piled high with an assortment of towels, soaps and toiletry items.

      But there was no Aimee. And no Jacques.

      “Ah, mon amie, something tells me you would have managed just fine without me. But if you wish to think of me as your hero, then who am I to argue?”

      Aimee laughed, and Jacques joined in.

      Peter gritted his teeth. He liked the man’s laughter even less than he liked his foreign accent, he decided. Crossing the room, he came to a stop at the doorway of Aimee’s bathroom, just in time to see her raise herself up on her toes and kiss the other man on the cheek.

      “Am I interrupting?” Peter asked, in a voice that was a great deal more civil than he was feeling.

      Aimee jumped. “Peter! What a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.” She rushed over and brushed her mouth against his.

      “Obviously.” He slipped his arm around Aimee’s waist and anchored her to his side. Given the way the other man was looking at her, it would have provided him with a great deal of pleasure to wipe the smile off the Frenchman’s face.

      “Peter, this is Jacques Gaston. He’s the new tenant I told you about.” Still smiling, Aimee continued, “Jacques, this is Peter—”

      “Gallagher.” Peter finished the introduction for her. With a feral smile, he extended his hand. “Aimee’s fiancé.”

       Two

      Stunned, Aimee opened her mouth, then clamped it shut. She could feel the flush climb her cheeks at Jacques’s questioning gaze.

      “I had not realized Aimee was engaged,” Jacques said, breaking the awkward silence. “Congratulations, Monsieur Gallagher. You are indeed a lucky man. And you, mon amie,” he continued, “you should have told me you were affianced.”

      “I’m not,” Aimee said. As she recovered from the initial shock of Peter’s declaration, her temper started to rise. Did he think by proclaiming them to be engaged he could make her sign that stupid prenuptial agreement and marry him? If he did, he had another thought coming.

      “But, I do not understand,” Jacques replied, his bewilderment evident.

      He wasn’t the only one, Aimee fumed silently. She tried to pry herself free from Peter’s side, but his fingers were like talons of steel, keeping her pinned to him.

      “What Aimee means is that it’s not official yet,” Peter explained.

      Aimee shot a fiery glance toward Peter at the out-and-out lie. “What I mean is that we are not engaged—” She hesitated at his pained expression. Her chest tightened as she glimpsed the sadness hidden beneath his hard facade. As always, Peter’s vulnerability was her undoing. The anger drained from her as quickly as it had come. “Yet,” she found herself adding.

      Peter’s fingers eased their death grip on her waist, but he didn’t release her. “You see, Aimee hasn’t actually agreed to marry me yet.” He cupped her jaw with his free hand, gently turning her so that she was forced to look into his eyes. “But I have every intention of changing her mind.”

      He stroked her bare arm. It was an innocent gesture, but one that set off tiny currents of sensation in her body. It had always been like this with Peter—the electricity, the heat—right from the beginning. As she looked into his eyes, she could feel it happening again, the flush of warmth, the excitement. From the first time she looked into his blue eyes, all hungry and hot as he watched her, she had responded with an answering need. Tendrils of heat unfurled in her stomach, flowed between her thighs.

      She had felt like Cinderella that first night, and Peter had been her prince. She had been powerless against her feelings for him, and had fallen in love with him almost from the start. His swift and relentless pursuit of her, followed by the proposal of marriage, had only added to the fairy-tale feeling.

      Except Peter hadn’t offered her a glass slipper or a place in his art kingdom where they would live happily ever after. She would easily have forgone both those things, if he had only offered her his love.

      He hadn’t. Instead, he had offered her a contract, one without promise or even hope for the future—a piece of paper that said he didn’t believe in love. That he didn’t love her.

      It had hurt. It still hurt. Yet she continued to love him. And there were moments, like when he awakened from one of the bad dreams that plagued him, or like now, when she sensed the yearning in him…It was at these times that she was sure that Peter not only wanted her love, but needed it, too.

      It was these moments that made her decide to continue her relationship with Peter…that gave her hope that he might fall in love with her one day…that made her bite her tongue now and give credence to the false impression he had just given Jacques.

      “Shame on you, Aimee.”

      Aimee pulled her thoughts back to the present at the sound of Jacques’s voice. “I beg your pardon?”

      “You allowed me to boast to you about my exhibition and never told me about your own.”

      “Jacques, what are you talking about?” Aimee asked, genuinely confused by the direction of the conversation.

      “I mean, Peter here is the owner of Gallagher’s, no?”

      “Yes.”

      “Then, surely, as your almost-fiance, his gallery will be hosting an exhibit of your works.”

      Peter’s fingers stilled on her arm. Pain lanced through Aimee as she felt his body stiffen beside her. Quickly she stepped away from him, feeling as though she had just taken an arrow in the heart.

      “Gallagher’s doesn’t carry my work,” Aimee said evenly.

      “But I don’t understand,” Jacques began. “I