Susan Fox - The Marriage Command

It was remarkable how quickly his arrogant, self-satisfied look stiffened and went harsh again.

“I don’t put stock in love, Miss Ryan. It’s not important.”

Claire nodded, not surprised. “You don’t have any to give, either, is that what you’re saying?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer that. “Well, you’ll need to scrape up some for Cody. I don’t care about love from you, either, but I won’t stand for you to not be loving to the boy. I also won’t tolerate any kind of abuse from you. No dragging me around like you did earlier, and if you ever raise a hand to Cody or to me, you’ll never get a second chance.”

Now his dark brows lowered into surly whorls. “I’ve never raised my hand to a woman or a child, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you think I would.”

She gave a small nod. “Good. That’s good. I’m very glad to hear that. And I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that any marriage we might make won’t be a one-way street with everything going only your way.”

“Then the answer is yes.”

“The answer is, I’ll think about it.”

His dark eyes glittered again and some of that arrogant satisfaction ghosted back over his harsh, unhandsome face. “Fair enough.”

Claire gave her head a decisive shake. “No it’s not fair, Mr. Pierce. None of this is. You might as well know now that I don’t think much of you for using the boy to manipulate me like this.”

She saw the flare of anger that caused, but the knock that came at the closed door to the hall startled her. Logan called out a terse, “What is it?” that diffused a fraction of the taut tension between them.

Elsa’s voice sounded subdued. “The boy’s awake.”

Concern for Cody waking up so soon distracted Claire, who promptly abandoned her things and hurried to the door to open it and rush through the house to Cody’s bedroom. The fact that Logan stayed behind in the den and allowed her to go alone gave her some much needed time to recover from the wild turmoil of raw emotion that tested her more savagely than anything ever had in her life.

What on earth should she do now? What could she do? The anxious questions answered themselves the moment she reached Cody’s bedroom and rushed across the room to take the boy in her arms. It seemed to take forever to quit shaking and regain her composure.

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