She took a breath, caught his gaze. “Why not? We’re in a mighty big charade. I think it’s going to be impossible for us to set limits on how close it makes us.”
“I told you that we don’t want to get close because I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You think you’re going to hurt me over a few shared comments? I’m not asking you to divulge state secrets. I’m just saying the charade works better when we’re talking.” She smiled slightly. “We haven’t talked in weeks.”
“And it’s my fault?”
She shook her head. “Dom. Dom. Dom. You’re so uptight. I’m not placing blame. That’s the beauty of forming a team and maybe even the beauty of knowing this team doesn’t have to last. We’re only going to be together for two years or so. After that, we are the parents of your country’s next heir who must get along.”
Totally against the rules of etiquette, Dom picked up a fork and tapped it lightly against his plate. “So?”
She could think she made him nervous enough to do something out of line. Or she could see she made him comfortable enough to do something totally out of line.
She liked the second. She believed the second.
“So, I honestly, genuinely believe that if we would simply allow ourselves to be friendly—maybe even to get close—in these next few years, the rest of our lives would go a lot smoother.”
He peeked over at her. “Really? That’s what you think?”
“Look at it logically. How does it benefit us to never speak? It doesn’t. It makes the charade more difficult and opens the doors for us to make mistakes.”
“True.”
“But if we talk at dinner and lunch, debrief about our days—”
This time when he peeked at her, he sort of smiled. “Debrief?”
“Sally and Joshua are rubbing off on me. I just mean we should talk about our days with each other.”
“Ah.”
“Then we won’t make as many mistakes.”
“It seems to me that just a few weeks ago, you were ignoring me.”
“I was figuring everything out.”
“And now you think you understand the whole situation?”
“I really do.”
“And your answer is for us to debrief.”
She met his gaze. “It’s more than that.”
His eyes darkened. “How much more?”
“I think we need to tell each other our reading interests, where we’ve been on vacation, a bit or two about our jobs. I think I need to fix your cuff links. You need to let me straighten your tie. I think we should be talking baby names and colors for the nursery.”
He held her gaze. “That’s going to take us into some dangerous territory.”
She took a long breath and with all her strength, all her courage, she kept eye contact. “I’m a big girl. I’m also a smart girl. I sort of like knowing that this relationship will end.”
His eyes searched hers. “So you’ve said.”
“My dad was an alcoholic who made promises he never kept. He was his most charming when he wanted to manipulate me. If there’s one thing I can’t trust, it’s people being nice to me. How am I ever going to create a relationship that leads to marriage if niceness scares me?”
He laughed unexpectedly. “You’re saying you think a relationship with me will work because I’m not nice?”
“I’m saying this is my shot. Do you know I’ve never fantasized about getting married and having kids? I was always so afraid I’d end up like my mother that I wouldn’t even let myself pretend I’d get married. So I’ve never had anything but surface relationships.” She sucked in a breath. Held his gaze. “This baby we’re having will probably be my only child. This marriage? It might be fake to you, but it’s the only marriage I’ll ever have. I’d love to have two years of happiness, knowing that I don’t have to trust you completely, that you can’t hurt me because we have a deadline.”
“You really don’t trust me?”
“I’ll never trust anyone.”
He glanced around the table at her bridesmaids, who were chatting up his brother, his dad and her mom, who clearly weren’t paying any attention to them, and suddenly faced her again.
“No.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE CATHEDRAL IN which Dom would marry Ginny was at least a thousand years old. It had been renovated six times and almost totally rebuilt once after a fire. The pews were cedar from Israel. The stained glass from a famous Italian artist. Two of the statues were said to have been created by Michelangelo, though no one could confirm it. And the art that hung in the vestibule? All of it was priceless.