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She could easily see him doing that, but it did not negate the other. "Her feelings do come first."
"I want you," he said in a driven tone.
It was quite the climb down for the man who had told her he didn't want sex clouding their relationship.
"What happened to sex between us being nonproductive?"
"I am fast learning that living together in the same house and not making love is impossible."
"So, I'm an addiction you can't break even if you don't remember ever wanting anything more than my body?"
"I did not say that."
"Tell me, Aristide…who will be managing the corporate charitable gifts for Kouros Industries in the future?"
Two streaks of red slashed across the chiseled features " of his face and she had her answer before he spoke. "I did not realize how attached to that aspect of her job Kassandra was when I made the offer."
"No, of course not."
"But you knew…apparently this has come up before," he had the gall to say with implied accusation.
Kassandra's effective negative publicity campaign at work again.
"Yes, it has, in fact—with the same results, I might add," she said defiantly. "Do remember who made the suggestion and that it was not me."
"The corporate charity fund is not the issue here and it has nothing to do with me wanting to take you to my bed."
"But it has a great deal to do with me not wanting to be there."
"I have got to hand it to you, Eden…you almost had me fooled. I was beginning to think there was not a mercenary bone in your body."
"And you see my desire to use my time promoting worthy charities as money grubbing?" she mocked, refusing to acknowledge the pain more accusations about her character caused her.
"No," he ground out. "I see you using your body as a bargaining chip in that light."
Was he really that dense? "Is that honestly what you think I'm doing, using my body for barter?"
"What else?"
"You don't think it might be natural for a wife to want nothing of intimacy with a husband who repeatedly puts his employee's wishes above her own?" Not to mention the fact he didn't remember her, but that was not the issue of paramount importance at the moment.
"That is ridiculous…the two do not coincide. Kassandra's pleasure in her job has nothing to do with your role as my wife. If you want to set up a charitable fund and administer it, I will be the biggest donor."
"If I said yes and invited you into my bed, then that really would make me the mercenary bitch you are so intent on believing me to be. No, thank you, Aristide. I would rather work with the somewhat smarmy Giuseppe."
"Do not try it." The deadly venom in his tone sent chills over her and she didn't argue the point.
She didn't want to work with Giuseppe anyway. The man might care about malnourished and undereducated children, but that couldn't make up for the fact he was so obviously interested in having an affair with a married woman.
Eden could never respect or be drawn to a man of that ilk, but she wasn't about to admit that truth to her husband. He deserved to sweat it out a little, like she'd been sweating his relationship with Kassandra since the beginning of their marriage.
CHAPTER EIGHT
« ^ »
Eden fed Theo his breakfast with a heavy heart.
Once again she was questioning her judgment in rejecting her husband. Had she made yet another mistake, or had she saved herself heartache? The last two weeks had been hard, but last night had been emotionally devastating.
Because for a very short time, it was as if she had Aristide back and that had both elated and frightened her. She was safe when her heart was locked away behind a cold wall built by his rejection, but when the wall started to crack, she realized she could still bleed.
She'd read somewhere that sometimes love was not enough. Her mother's love had been more of a handicap to her happiness than an emotion so powerful it could make up for her father's lack. Eden was beginning to think she had made the same mistake in marrying a man who did not love her the way she loved him.
But if love was not enough…if their marriage had to end, what did that say for Theo and the baby growing in Eden's womb? She shuddered at the thought of tearing them away from a father who would love them in a way her own father had never doted on her. Could she justify destroying their happiness for the sake of her own feelings?
She was so lost in thought, she did not hear Aristide come into the kitchen. Her first inkling he was there came when he leaned down and kissed their son's baby-round cheek. "Good morning, agape mou." He turned to her, his expression cooling several degrees. "Good morning, Eden."
He was still smarting from her sexual rejection, she could tell. There was an air about him that said he hadn't slept any better than she had either.
"Off to Kouros Industries already?" she asked, indicating his briefcase with a nod of her head.
It was barely seven.
"I have an early morning meeting."
"Did you remember that you promised to take your mother and Vincent out to lunch today before they leave?" The older couple planned to return to their home and then come back to the villa in time for a family Christmas.
"I am hardly likely to forget a lunch date we made yesterday."
"I didn't mean to imply that you would, but when you don't have something on your calendar, you've been known to remember it too late to be of any use." She said it softly, not wanting another slanging match this morning.
Neither she, nor her heart, were up to it.
He sighed, apparently accepting her explanation. "I will meet you at the restaurant at one."
"Okay."
He turned to leave and then stopped. "Speaking of engagements, my diary shows a dinner with you tomorrow night."
"Yes." Thinking about that dinner and the reason for it had been part of what kept her up the night before.
"We will have to do it another time."
"Why?"
"Something has come up."
"With Kassandra?"
"With my business," he said on another sigh. "Out of town colleagues will be here one evening only."
"That night." And she just knew who she could thank for arranging the timing on this one.
"Yes. That night. Surely you do not mind postponing the dinner. It is not as if we do not eat together several nights a week. I suppose this was supposed to be some sort of a date without Theo, but in our current situation that seems overkill, do you not think?"
Overkill? Probably so. And why should she mind? It was only the anniversary of the day they met, after all. He had contrived to make it special since the beginning, but he certainly would not remember that now.
"By all means, cancel the dinner."
"I did not say cancel, I said postpone."
She ignored his argument over semantics and went back to feeding their son. He was the one who said a date in their current situation was ludicrous.
Aristide stood there, smoldering in silence for several seconds.
He glared down at her and then swung out of the house, an angry panther deprived of its prey.
Aristide wasn't surprised to see his brother and sister-in-law with Vincent and Phillippa when he reached the restaurant, but he was surprised Eden was not present at the table.
"Where is Eden?" he asked after greeting his mother and sister-in-law with a kiss.
"I do not know. We have not seen Eden all morning. We have been Christmas shopping," his mother replied.
"She called and said she was running late." Rachel looked at Aristide as if wondering why his wife had chosen to call her instead of her own husband.
He had no answer for her, except that Eden no doubt planned to take avoiding him to new levels now that he'd cancelled their dinner date. His suspicion was confirmed when only minutes later his cell phone rang and it was Eden. She wasn't coming to lunch because Theo had just laid down for his afternoon nap and by the time she arrived it would be too late to eat with them.
She asked to speak to his mother and he passed the phone over, feeling gritty disappointment that he would not see his wife.
"Does she cancel like this often?" he asked after his mother flipped shut his mobile phone.
"Not at all, though I'm not surprised. If Theo needed her, she would not leave him. Eden has always been an exemplary mother and wife," his mother said with heavy-handed intimation.
"Has she?" he asked with bitter irony.
"What are you implying?" Sebastian demanded.
"If she was so wonderful, why did I forget her?"
Sebastian shook his head, clearly shocked by the question. "You were in a car accident…you had a concussion. That is excuse enough."
