Read Online The Wedding Must Go On by Robyn Grady - Free Book Online Page B

right woman, it would seem. Each couple has tied the knot within weeks of starting to date. Nine months on, like clockwork, the first child comes along, and any plans for a career, for a solid future, is put on the back burner indefinitely. My father could have been a surgeon. Instead for years he cleaned bedpans.’
    ‘And that’s the curse’s fault?’
    His chiselled features hardened more. ‘My predecessors have given up everything for love. Career. Health. In some instances, their sanity. Call me selfish or an egotist but I don’t want to be a hospital wardsman or the road maintenance guy who holds up slow-down signs when I can work in a professional field that I’m good at. That I enjoy.’
    Roxy eyed him up and down. This was hogwash. Curses weren’t real. Intelligent men weren’t bewitched by women who sucked out their souls. This must be another scam, like when, earlier, he’d manipulated Ava Morris into believing he was a genuine guy with a fiancée he adored. Having said that, she would concede she was beyond grateful for the sale. At least she could pay some outstanding bills.
    And yet as she continued to study him Roxy couldn’t help but be halfway convinced by the resignation shiningin his eyes. Could he have been brainwashed from childhood into accepting this family curse junk? Common sense wasn’t a factor when you were taught from birth what to believe. What was truth. Like,
Your father does love us. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t come back
.
    ‘This has really got you convinced, hasn’t it?’
    ‘I grew up dirt poor,’ he said, ‘which I can more than handle. The really hard part was having a father who couldn’t function without his other half. I’m saying if my mother had died, he would have died too. When you have five kids to consider, I don’t care how many love stories you’ve seen, that’s not romantic. It’s—’
    Growling, he bit off the word.
    ‘You’re the only son,’ she said.
The oldest
. ‘What do your sisters say?’
    ‘They never had careers to consider. And before you pounce, my respect for a woman doesn’t hinge on whether she has a career or not. I’m just saying.’
    Being the only other ‘man’ in the family, perhaps Nate felt the responsibility—the link with his parents—more deeply or differently than the girls. She had to ask.
    ‘Sure there’s not a little Oedipus syndrome going on here?’
    He pulled a pained face. ‘But even if there were, fact remains, I’m not ready to settle down. Fall in love. Gamble my future or throw it away.’
    Her smile was thin.
Nice
. ‘I pity the poor girl you end up proposing to—properly, that is.’
    ‘That’s a long way off.’
    She studied the firm set of his mouth and for a heartbeat she wanted to comfort him. Seemed his childhood wasn’t as rosy as she first thought. He’d grown up feeling pushed to the background. Feeling as if he and his siblings didn’t matter as much as they should. At least when herfather had been home, he’d showered her with affection. Her dad was a charismatic man, the kind who didn’t self-analyze or register any guilt.
    But as much as Roxy sympathized with ‘Nate the boy’, a stronger part of her said,
Enough
. A whole new stream of commitment phobia could be named after ‘grown-up Nate’. Whether he was justified in his negative stand regarding love and marriage, she wasn’t in a position to say. She hadn’t lived his life and didn’t own anyone’s opinions. She could only look after her own best interests and more than ever they seemed clear.
    Roxy shored herself up. ‘It’s certainly been an interesting evening.’
    The tension in his face, in his stance, seemed to ease. A grateful smile hooked one corner of his mouth at the same time long warm fingers curled around her hand and, just like that, a bevy of sparks spiralled up her arm, stole her breath.
    ‘So you
do
understand,’ he said.
    ‘Frankly, I’m not sure if I do or I don’t. I only know I don’t feel