Harlequin Kimani Romance October 2014 Box Set: Sweet Silver Bells\Eve of Passion\Love by Design\Take Me in Your Arms by Rochelle Alers

Author:Rochelle Alers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

“I can’t do this,” was the first thing Ballard said when they were alone in the room, the door closed behind them. “I can’t marry you under these pretenses.”

She looked devastated as he said the words, taking steps that backed her up against a wall of shelves. He wanted to reach for her, to hold her in his arms, but something stopped him. Guilt, most likely.

“I was wrong to propose to you, Janelle, wrong to suggest that we make a logical agreement to spend the rest of our lives together. I’ve been so used to doing business all my life that I just treated our relationship like another business arrangement.”

Ballard turned away from her, the pain in his chest too great to continue looking at her as he spoke.

“I’ve always had a plan, always had specific steps that I took to get where I needed to be. It’s how I was raised, how I wanted my life to remain. Orderly, efficient, profitable—that’s what I wanted. That’s what I needed. Do you remember...” he said, turning around quickly in the hopes that she hadn’t left him standing in there alone. On a sigh of relief he continued, “Do you remember that first night at dinner when you looked at me in horror as I talked about my dating method? You were angered because to you it sounded callous and impersonal. And you know what? It was. It’s just taken me all these years to figure that out. No,” he added with another sigh. “It took you coming into my life for me to figure it out. For me to figure out a lot of things.” He rubbed his hands down his face, overwhelmed with everything moving inside of him at the moment. It felt like the tornadoes he watched on the Weather Channel, the huge funnel cloud touching down and wreaking all kinds of havoc and destruction—that was what his life had been like all these years and he hadn’t even realized it. Then the bright sunny day that always appeared after the destruction. Today could have been that sunny day. It could have been the start of his new life, his new beginning, if only he’d been selfish enough to go through with it.

“I did all this for me,” he told Janelle. “I proposed because I wanted you and I thought we should be together. I figured it was the most logical next step for us and I believed that with all my heart. On another level I think I proposed because my grandfather offered me the entire company if I married you.”

He paused then, looking at Janelle as she stood in her wedding gown, staring at the woman who had changed his life.

“Then I thought of your father,” he continued, “and how selfish it was of him to ask you to come to us for political support and I wanted to save you from him, from doing his bidding out of guilt. Then something happened, Janelle. Something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain.

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