But somewhere along the line, things had changed. He wasn’t sure how, wasn’t sure when and he for damn sure didn’t know what to do about it. But Casey was staring at him and he had to say something.
“Yes, I had planned to marry Marian,” he blurted when nothing better came to mind.
He saw her wince and if it had been possible, he’d have kicked himself. He’d never planned to hurt her. Yet it seemed he couldn’t now avoid it.
“It was a business decision,” he told her, trying somehow to lessen the sting of the surprise she’d just had.
She closed her eyes briefly, shook her head as if she were tired and said, “Business.”
“Yes. A marriage of convenience. A merger really, more than a marriage,” he added. Then he took a deep breath and kept talking because he sensed she was shutting down. Shutting himout. And suddenly, he very much wanted to bein. “Look, both of my brothers married women for the wrong reasons and wound up so damned happy they’re annoying with it. I figured I stood at least the same chance they’d had and it was a good call for King Jets. Marian’s father owns several well-placed airfields around the country. By marrying her, I guaranteed King Jets landing space and new routes.”
“Good for you,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “Congratulations. I’ll be sure to get all the new routes correctly when I redesign your Web site.”
He groaned with frustration himself. “The damn ring’s here, remember? It’s not on her finger because I’m not marrying her.”
“Really. Why not?”
Why not. A loaded question if he’d ever heard one. And hell, he wasn’t completely sure of the answer himself beyond the fact that he couldn’t face the thought of a lifetime with a woman who wasn’t Casey.
Damn.
When he didn’t answer, Casey looked up at him, waiting. “It’s a simple question, Jackson. Why are you not marrying the fabulous Cornice airfields?”
“Because of you and Mia,” he said, tightening up in self-defense. The woman was glaring at him like he’d just told her he was personally responsible for the new sport of puppy kicking. “I told her I needed time. Time with Mia. Time to get my life together.”
“So you’re not marrying hernow. ”
“Ever,” he corrected, more certain of that fact now than he had been before.
“That’s not what you told her though, is it?”
“No,” he admitted, shoving one hand through his hair and wondering how the hell to get out of this mess he was slogging through. “I told her we’d talk in six months,” he admitted. “I wanted to give her the chance to call it off herself.”
“How very noble of you,” she said and tried to step past him.
He cut her off again and she blew out a frustrated breath.
“It’s not noble,” he argued, trying to figure out how to explain to her what he didn’t completely understand himself. “It’s—”
“It’s what, Jackson?” she asked and he actuallysaw her eyes go from pale to dark blue and he felt a wary twinge echo inside him. “Expedient? You don’t want to be engaged to one woman while sleeping with another? Well, that just makes you a candidate for Man of the Year, doesn’t it?”
Her hurt was quickly swallowed by fury and Jackson, being a wise man, took a step back.
“You used me,” she said tightly, raking him up and down with a gaze that should have turned him to ice on the spot. “You used me for sex while keeping the no doubt eminently suitableMarian in the wings.”
He was willing to let her blow off some steam, but damned if he’d stand there and let her insult both of them. “We used each other for sex, babe,” he said and saw his verbal dart hit home. Quickly, instinctively, he followed it with another. “I never promised you anything.”
“So that makes it okay, hmm?” Her whisper was nothing more than a hiss of sound. “Don’t make promises and then it doesn’t matter what you do? Who you hurt?” She walked in close, jabbed her index finger at his chest and said, “What about Mia? Were you going to push her aside once you marriedMarian? ”
“Of course not! Mia’s my daughter. She’s always going to be my daughter.”
“That’s something, I suppose,” she said under her breath.
“Casey…” He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, holding onto her tightly when she tried to slip out of his grasp. He didn’t know how to put things back together and it irritated hell out of him to have to admit that to himself. Always before, he’d known what to say. What to do. Now, when he needed that ability the most though, it had deserted him. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this to us. Don’t ruin what we have.”
“What we have?” she repeated softly. “You can’t ruin what you don’t have.” When she lifted her gaze to his, he saw the furious dark blue of her eyes had faded to a nearly impersonal pale blue stare. “Besides, I didn’t do any of this, Jackson. You did.” She pulled away from him, tightened her grip on the papers she held in one fist and said,
“Now. Julie’s waiting to see these menus.”
“She can wait a few more minutes,” he said, not willing to let her go. Not when there was so much left unsaid between them. Not when he could still see pain he’d caused shining in her eyes.
“No, she really can’t.” Casey ran one hand over her short, shaggy hair, and said, “I’d rather your entire family and my friends didn’t know anything was wrong, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to see some of your fabulous acting skills when you go back downstairs.”
“Casey—”
“No reason the day has to be spoiled for anyone else,” she said and walked out of the room without a backward glance.
When everyone had left, Casey still was in no mood to talk to Jackson and since she needed to make a trip into town, she left him with Mia and took off. The drive in the big black bus he’d purchased for her at least shifted her concentration away from the fool she’d made of herself. She had to focus on the road, on other drivers, rather than on the lancing pain stabbing at her heart.
“It’s your own fault,” she murmured, steering the lumbering SUV into a diagonal parking slot in front of the drugstore. She slipped the gearshift into park, set the brake and turned off the key. Then she leaned her forehead on the steering wheel and closed her eyes. “You knew going in that this was temporary. That all it was for Jackson was a chance to know his daughter. You’re the one who let sex become more. You’re the one who started daydreaming….”