To Make a Marriage by Carole Mortimer

bridge of her nose.
    â€˜You’re offering only half a commitment, Adam, for the sake of our child. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t live that way.’ She turned away, her face set in rigid lines.
    Adam grasped her arms, turning her back to face him. ‘You couldn’t live that way?’ he echoed disbelievingly. ‘Then why the hell should you expect me to?’ He shook her slightly in his agitation. ‘From what I understand, marriage can be difficult enough, without having to sit there waiting for your partner to fall in love with someone else!’
    Andie opened her mouth to say something. And then closed it again, looking up at him frowningly.
    Adam coldly withstood that searching gaze. He would do a lot for Andie, agree to almost anything she asked of him, but he could not agree to committing himself to sitting there wondering when she would leave him. He just couldn’t do that.
    She hesitated. ‘I didn’t—I wasn’t—Adam, I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding—’
    â€˜No misunderstanding, Andie,’ he bit back. ‘Either you agree to marry me, on the understanding it’s a lifetime commitment—with no third parties involved. Ever,’ he added grimly. ‘Or we forget the whole thing.’
    His heart was beating so loudly in his chest he could almost hear it, the blood rushing through his veins at break-neck speed as he felt his future balanced on the knife-edge of Andie’s reply. He hadn’t meant to issue her with an ultimatum, but in the circumstances he didn’t feel he hadany option. Even so, he stopped breathing as he waited for her to speak.
    A nerve pulsed erratically in the slender column of Andie’s throat. ‘Adam,’ she began slowly. ‘Just now, when you said those terms were unacceptable to you, I thought you meant that fidelity to me was unacceptable to you, not—’ she licked the dryness of her lips ‘—not the—the fact that the marriage might eventually fail because one of us fell in love with someone else!’
    Adam’s lips thinned. ‘I may have come into the idea of marriage a bit later than most people, Andie, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have my own views on what it should be. And it shouldn’t be a relationship that has the sword of Damocles hanging over it!’
    That nerve was still pulsing in her throat, but some of the colour seemed to be returning to her cheeks now. Thank goodness, Adam noted with relief. He had come here to offer a solution to their problem, not to make Andie ill.
    Her body relaxed slightly beneath the tight hold Adam still had of her arms. ‘I agree,’ she finally said softly.
    Adam was perturbed. What did she agree to? This was turning into a nightmare; his emotions were like a roller coaster, one minute up, the next minute down.
    Andie drew in a steadying gulp of air, her chin raised determinedly. ‘On the understanding that it won’t be a temporary thing. No half commitments, no third parties involved. Ever,’ she repeated his words clearly. ‘I agree to marry you.’
    That knife-edge was suddenly no longer there, the sword no longer threatening. Andie was going to marry him!
    And for the moment, that would have to be enough…

CHAPTER SIX
    T HE angry bellow could be heard throughout the whole house. Although the house staff, thank goodness, were used, over the years, not to react to their employer’s occasional bouts of temper, apparently carrying on with their daily chores.
    Something Andie was most grateful for as she shot Audrey a pained grimace. The two of them were in the sitting-room, supposedly drinking coffee together. Although, so far, that coffee had remained cooling in the cups as the two of them sat tensely waiting for Rome’s reaction to Adam’s news.
    They had just heard it!
    â€˜It’s gone very quiet,’ Andie murmured a few seconds later,