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“You see,” he rasped, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, “that is what I am talking about. When you crawl inside of me and it’s so real it’s like you are inside of me, Diana. Tell me you will share that with someone else... Tell me you think it can get better.”
She couldn’t. She could not deny it when she felt so lost.
“Take me home,” she said quietly. “We can work this out, but take me home.”
“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his expression hard and implacable. “This is where we learn to sacrifice for the greater good. We leave our selfishness at the door and give our child the future he or she deserves. And the first step of making that happen is learning to understand each other because we clearly never did.”
She stared at him, knowing on some level he was right, but afraid to admit it. Afraid what this might mean for her sanity to try again with Coburn...
His mouth flattened at her continued silence. “I’ve had clothes put in your closet, including a bathing suit. I suggest you put one on while you think about doing the right thing. I have some cooling off to do.”
Her gaze dropped to his rampant masculinity straining against the confines of his shorts. It should have made her feel better to know he’d been as caught up in that as she had. Instead, she felt confused and on the verge of tears. She swallowed the feeling of helplessness that invaded her as she watched him walk away, so familiar and yet such a stranger to her now.
Her mind was too full to think, the late-morning sun already so hot the silk robe was sticking to her body like a glove. She wanted to thumb her nose at Coburn, to protest by going to her room and staying there, but the thought of being inside instead of on the breezy beach was intolerable. It seemed there was no way out of here.
She put on one of the bikinis hanging in the closet in her room, grabbed a protein shake from the well-stocked refrigerator in the kitchen and went down to the beach. A perfect stretch of golden sand stretched in front of the cottage, bounded by two high cliffs that rose in a dramatic collage of crashing waves, sparkling sun and rough-hewn rock. It was a view that must have cost its owner millions.
She wondered what Arthur Kent would think if he knew Coburn was holding her prisoner here. Would he care? Or would he bow down to the Grant influence as everyone else on this godforsaken earth did?
Frustration seared her bones. She stalked past Coburn, who was just a blip in the turquoise water, his powerful arms cutting a path through the sea far out in the breakers. Who did he think he was? He could not do this to her. And yet he was.
She kept walking until she reached the end of the cove. Stowing her empty protein shake on a rock, she went for a dip in the sea. The warm water slipped over her limbs like a silken gift from heaven. Something like sanity returned as she flipped over on her back and floated on the waves. She stayed there for a long time, her negative emotions draining away with the lull of the surf and the sun.
A villa sat perched on top of the cliff, sparkling in the sunlight, looking so ethereal surrounded by the clouds it brought to mind a house of the gods straddling the earth and heavens. Did it belong to Arthur Kent? It certainly would be the view she’d choose.
Perhaps Coburn would introduce her to their hosts when they returned on the weekend. If she hadn’t found a way to do smoke signals and get herself rescued before then...
Her mouth curved. At last finding something amusing about her intolerable situation, she pulled herself out of the water and went to sit on a big rock to dry off. Leaning back on her palms, she contemplated the endless horizon of blue. Allowed herself to consider what Coburn was proposing. She couldn’t deny reconciling with him and bringing up their baby together would provide the optimal environment for their child. Studies had shown that children were better off in families with parents who stayed together as long as the situation between the couple was on a reasonably agreeable footing. What changed that prognosis was when the relationship became toxic; when the environment was more harmful to the child’s well-being than beneficial. Then a couple was better off separating.
She thought about what Beth had said about her and Coburn. That sometimes the most passionate relationships were the ones that burned out the brightest because of the intensity of the emotion involved. It was so true for them. They had never had a middle ground. It had always been highs and lows: one minute they were completely wrapped up in each other, the next they were at each other’s throats.
Because they had refused to compromise. Coburn had been right about that. They had both been too selfish, too wrapped up in their own desires to want to give.
