The Pretend Boyfriend novel Chapter 91

Her face hardens.

He knows she is referring to her suicide attempt. The feeling of guilt overwhelms him again, but he tries to stave it off. No matter how guilty he was in the past, she's using her emotional strings to blackmail him now. For this is blackmail - clear as daylight.

He swallows the lump that has bolted to his throat. "For how long will this new deal continue?"

"For as long as it takes." Her eyes hold a gleam of something indefinable. It isn't madness. It isn't calculation. He realizes that she desperately wants to keep him with her.

He finds his blood running cold.

"I can't do that," he says. "I'm not in love with you."

Far from it. I'm in love with Sam!

There, he said it to himself And he didn't turn into stone.

"You were never the sort of man to 'do' love. So don't begin that sort of talk now."

"You want me to live with you. To be your lover. For keeps. There's no timeline definition." He is finding it hard even to live a lie for two weeks. And he's forcing himself to do it for Sam. He shakes his head. "I can't do that, Delilah. I can't live like that."

"You want to go to prison?" Her voice takes on an edge.

He shutters his eyes, and then opens them again.

"No, I don't want to go to prison. But in prison, at least I won't have to live a lie. So I'll take my chances on the stand."

Her complexion is mottled. Her voice is very cold.

"They are going to rape you in there. Someone with your face and body. You wouldn't last a week." She practically spits this at him.

"Maybe. But I can't live a lie, Delilah. Surely you'd understand that." She would be forcing him into a prison of her own devices. And even if he was out there - free in the sunshine - his mind and body would be confined in a prison every bit as claustrophobic as one with four walls and iron bars.

He can already envision it. He would be forced to come home to her every day. It wouldn't be a home. He would be a man of his word. He wouldn't take the 'deal', get her to drop the charges before the court case, and then renege on his promise. He doesn't make promises he knows he won't keep. He would force every fiber of his body to go through with it.

She is trembling with anger.

"You're rejecting me," she accuses him. "Again."

He continues in a controlled tone, "I would pretty much consider us even. There's no need to make me ... and Sam ... go on paying."

She shakes her head.

"I love you," she says, and her face and voice are so full of complex, painful emotions that he shudders. He has no doubt she means it too. It is obsession bordering on love, but it is love nonetheless.

He says gently, "You think you love me, but you don't. You've never known me. You've only known a caricature of me. You can't love an 'idea' of a person. I'm not who you think I am. You're trying to mold me into someone you want me to be, but I'm not that person."

"It's that woman, isn't it?"

He doesn't reply.

"It's her," she insists. "And I'll be damned if I let both of you have each other. You think about it, Brian. I'll give you two days. You and your little lovebird can go to separate prisons, or you can do the right thing and repay what you owe me."

Sam can see that Brian is extremely troubled.

He is home tonight, and she guesses that Delilah has released him from his duties. But why? It could be as mundane as her having to attend an office function tonight. It could also be as sinister as him having done something to displease her.