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“In a week? I understand you are angry. I understand we have things to work out with regards to this baby, but I am not staying married to you, Coburn.”
“Why?” His gaze lashed her face, all belligerent testosterone. “Don’t you think it’s better for our baby to grow up with both parents?”
“If we didn’t hate each other, yes.”
His gaze narrowed. “We have a lot of emotions in the mix right now, but hatred isn’t one of them.”
She wasn’t sure what to call it, but whatever it was, it wasn’t a good basis for a marriage. “We can’t make this work. We’ve proved that.”
“The only thing we’ve proved is what doesn’t work. How good we are at running away from our problems instead of facing them.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes,” he said harshly, “I’m including myself in that. I know I wasn’t perfect, either. We have fundamentally different views on how we want to live our lives, Diana, but somehow we are going to have to reconcile those views for the sake of this baby. To give him or her a chance to grow up with the solid foundation of a cohesive family unit.”
“What if I want to be happy?” she blurted out. “You don’t want to marry anyone else right now, but what if you do someday? What if I want to? Shouldn’t I have that choice?”
His eyes darkened into that midnight shade of blue she knew signaled imminent danger. “You don’t want to marry someone else, Di, because if you did, you would have filed for divorce months ago. You wouldn’t have waited a year to do it, until you were about to step on a plane and fly off to another continent so the coward in you wouldn’t have to face your unresolved feelings for me until the papers were signed and we were beyond the point of no return.”
“I don’t have unresolved feelings for you.”
His mouth twisted in a derisive curl. “That night on my terrace was strictly you getting yourself off, was it? The questions you asked about my other women, the way you tried to take me apart? That was all because you are so over me. I can see it now.”
An all-over body flush suffused her. “That was closure for me, Coburn.”
“Yeah, you looked like you had it when you left.” He studied her with that analytical intensity that seemed to reach right inside her. “There’s this thing that happens when I touch you. A need inside of you to connect that makes you slip out of that shell of yours and try to crawl inside of me. I can feel it when you do it. I felt it that night we were together, Diana. It’s still there.”
The husky play of his words singed her skin. If she’d tried to verbalize how being with Coburn made her feel, she couldn’t have done it better. Except he didn’t want her anymore—he wanted his child.
“I think you flatter yourself,” she denied. “Are you sure that isn’t your own emotion talking? Because there was a hell of a lot of anger in you that night, Coburn.”
“There still is.” He surprised her by admitting it. “But we’re talking about you and your refusal to acknowledge your emotions. You ran away because I was forcing you to address a part of yourself that terrifies you. You were afraid I would break down those walls and leave you wide-open for scrutiny.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she scoffed, pulling against his hold. “Let me go.”
“Not until you admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“You still have feelings for me we can build on.”
“I don’t.” She lifted her chin. “But even if I did, why would I tell you, a man who professes to feel nothing for me?”
A guarded expression passed over his face. “I believe if we put the past behind us, we can find something in what we had. Maybe it won’t be love, but it can be enough.”
A sharp pain went through her at his blunt admission. “You honestly think that’s enough to raise a child together?”
“I know it is. It’s more than the political arrangement my parents had. They didn’t even sleep together. There was no affection.”
And there it was, three years into their relationship, finally a clue into what made her husband tick. She yanked on her arms again, still manacled by his hands. “Let me go.”
He let go of one of her arms but only to move his palm to her back, her other wrist still held firmly in his grip. His gaze latched on to hers. “Kiss me right now without emotion, and I will call the pilot to fly us out of here before the day is done.”
