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She gave a hollow little laugh. ‘Tell you?’ She shook her head, as though not believing that he could be quite so dense. ‘Cormack, you were the last person in the world I even wanted to think about, let alone speak to! I didn’t allow myself to consider you. Simon had become my baby—and mine alone.’
‘So that’s why you went into hiding? Why you instructed Michael and Martha to keep your whereabouts secret?’
‘You could have found me if you had really wanted to!’ she accused him, finally admitting to the pain she had felt when he had not come looking for her.
‘Do you really think that I am the kind of man to force himself on a woman when she has shown every sign of not wanting me?’ he drawled.
‘Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?’ she challenged. ‘By staying here?’
‘Oh, no.’ He gave a cold, cynical laugh. ‘The difference is that I am no longer concerned with what you want, Triss. My concern now is for my son—and his wants. His needs too. You have denied him a father through an emotion as shallow as a fit of pique—simply because you were jealous of another woman.’
Triss scarcely recognised her own shaky voice as she said, ‘This has more to do with respect than jealousy.’
‘Well, if it’s about respect, then why don’t you show me a little?’ he queried gravely.
‘And how do I do that?’
He gave her an odd smile. ‘By marrying me, perhaps?’
CHAPTER TEN
TRISS turned to look at Cormack as though he had just taken leave of his senses.
What bitter-sweet irony, she thought, that he should at last have uttered the words she had once longed to hear. And what a pity that it should be in such unconventional and unsettling circumstances.
‘Marry you?’
‘Is that such a bizarre request, Triss?’
‘In view of the contempt which you obviously feel for me, then I would say yes, it is.’
‘But I notice that you didn’t automatically reject the suggestion out of hand,’ he mused.
Triss shook her head. ‘That’s because I’m intelligent enough to see that perhaps marriage does have something to recommend it—in our case. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to agree to it.’
‘Why not?’ he enquired coolly.
‘Because, while I recognise that the advantages to Simon of having both parents around would be huge, I think that they are outweighed by one fundamental disadvantage.’
‘Which is?’
“That we find it impossible to exist in anything resembling a state of harmony.’
‘But we did once,’ he reminded her. ‘Or have you forgotten that?’
Forgotten it? She had every moment of it etched indelibly on her mind! She ran her hand distractedly through her hair, realising that with all the planning and excitement and dread of the last few weeks she had not bothered to have it cut.
‘That was a long time ago, Cormack—’
‘It’s a little over three years, Triss—hardly a lifetime.’
‘It is when you’ve had a baby,’ she whispered, and saw from the pained expression which clouded his eyes that she had wounded him when she had not intended to.
‘That much has changed,’ he conceded.
‘And more too!’ she cried passionately. ‘We were young then—and in love...’ Her voice tailed away dispiritedly as her mind registered how much it hurt to talk of love always in the past tense.
‘Whereas now we’re both old and cynical?’
