Читать книгу Injured Innocent - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 7

LISSA WOKE UP the next morning feeling totally disorientated; initially by the strangeness of her room, and then by the huge weight of depression which seemed to have descended upon her out of nowhere. And then she remembered.

She had agreed to marry Joel! She closed her eyes and groaned, her head falling back against her pillow. How could she have been so stupid? She would have to tell him she had changed her mind. It was her own silly temper and pride that had led into folly; the old burning anger cum anguish she always experienced whenever she was with him. Why oh why after all these years, should Joel still be the one whose contempt and rejection of her hurt so badly? Was it because he had been the one to thrust open that bedroom door and see her? Was it because somehow in her innermost mind she had because of that confused him in some way with her father? They were questions Lissa could not answer; all she did know was that whenever she came in contact with him she was reminded of the way he had looked at her that night … and how for one weak minute she had longed to cry out to him to understand and forgive her … Shivering faintly despite the centrally heated warmth of her bedroom, she was just contemplating how best to tell him that she had changed her mind and that she was certainly not prepared to marry him; even for the sake of her nieces when the door burst open and the two little girls rushed in, both still in their nightdresses.

Louise reached her first, flinging herself on to the bed and cuddling up next to her. Emma, still very much a toddler needed a helping hand, but there was no mistaking the enthusiasm in her hug when she was finally on the bed with Lissa and her sister.

‘You’re going to marry Uncle Joel and then you’ll be our new mummy and daddy,’ Louise announced importantly.

Lissa’s heart sank. She felt trapped and desperate. How could she have been so crazy as to allow those old hurts to trap her into her present position. It seemed mediaeval and archaic now, in the cold clear light of a February morning that she should actually have contemplated marrying Joel, simply to even punish him for the pain he had once caused her. That was all over and done with now. But Joel … why did he want to marry her?

That was simple Lissa told herself; he wanted someone to look after the children who was not going to walk out on him. If she backed out she would lose the girls, Lissa reminded herself, looking at the two blonde heads, nestled together against her warmth. As she watched them, a melting, aching wave of love for them suffused her. If she didn’t marry Joel, he would find someone who would and the girls would be lost to her for ever. Could she endure that? Looking at them Lissa knew she could not. This deeply maternal feeling she felt towards them was something she had always kept well hidden from others. Only Amanda had been aware of it, wryly amused by her sister’s passionate love for her daughters, warning Lissa that when she married she would soon discover the drawbacks to being a mother. ‘You want them because this way you can satisfy your mothering instincts without having to endure someone’s lovemaking’, an inner voice warned her, but Lissa refused to listen, her fingers curling slightly into the bedclothes as she tried to deny the thoughts. Whose fault was it that she froze every time a man touched her she asked herself, trying to whip up some of the anger she had that had consumed her last night. Not hers!

Her bedroom door opened again, and she blinked in stunned disbelief as Joel strolled in carrying a breakfast tray, which he put down on the table by the bed.

‘Who said you two could come in here?’ he demanded of the girls, ruffling the blonde curls and drawing stifled giggles form Louise.

‘You and Lissa are going to be our new mummy and daddy, aren’t you?’ Louise demanded importantly of him, and yet Lissa could see that beyond the child’s self-importance was a shadow of uncertainty and fear, and all her inner arguments against what they were doing melted. If for no other reason surely the sacrifice demanded of her was not too great when she thought of what it would mean to the girls. Joel was right; they needed the security and stability of a proper family unit, and if she didn’t marry him, Joel would stand by his threat to find someone who would. She loved them too much to let someone else take her place with them, Lissa knew, and as she raised stormy hazel eyes to meet the mocking gold of Joel’s, she knew that he had faithfully monitored each and every single thought that had passed through her head since he walked in the room.