Bride By Design by Leigh Michaels

Author:Leigh Michaels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

THE guest room was small, and though she’d obviously tried to make him feel welcome, David thought the room still felt more like an office than a bedroom. The desk had been hastily pushed aside to open up the space; he could see the indentations in the carpet where it used to stand, almost in the center of the room. Half of the closet was taken up with neatly marked files and boxes, and the narrow bed was piled with pillows so it could function more like a couch. A single small chest served to hold a printer as well as a visitor’s belongings.

It was apparent to David that Eve didn’t have overnight guests very often. Or if she does, a little voice in the back of his brain suggested, they don’t use the guest room.

If, for instance, Travis Tate had come to visit…

Knock it off, David ordered himself. What difference did it make if he had? It was none of his business. Eve had told him the relationship was over, and he had no reason to doubt her sincerity. The pain in her voice had made it obvious that she had not made her decision lightly but only after agonizing consideration.

Still…the whole story didn’t quite hang together.

He stacked the frivolous pillows in a corner, turned off the lights, and tried to get comfortable in the narrow bed. Folding his arms under his head and staring at the ceiling, he thought about what she’d told him.

It was an old story, of course. A married man and a vulnerable woman who’d fallen for the line he’d spun for her. Only most women wouldn’t have called it quits where Eve had. She hadn’t fallen into the trap of thinking that her boyfriend’s little girls would automatically be better off if their quarreling parents split. Of course, with her history, she’d known better. She’d been hurt too badly herself as a child to deliberately cause the same kind of anguish for a couple of other little girls.

I did the only thing I could, she’d told him, and the pain in her voice convinced him she’d believed what she was saying.

But no matter what she believed, it simply wasn’t true, and now David knew what had been niggling at him. There were other options—a middle ground that lay between breaking up a family and entirely giving up the man she loved. Why—for instance—had she never considered simply waiting till Travis Tate’s children were grown? If she cared so much for him, surely that possibility should have occurred to her.

Or maybe it did, David thought, and she decided it was too long to wait.

The children were very young, of course—six and three, had she said?—and it would have been a long wait indeed. But surely, if she was really as serious about Travis as she thought she was, she’d have at least thought about it. And considering how high and mighty her reasons were, even a fifteen-year wait—until the younger child went to college—surely wouldn’t have seemed too long.

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