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How could she feel like that? Their marriage had been a disaster, and yet she could feel a part of herself responding with an eagerness that shocked her.
Ignoring the quivering sensation in her stomach, she forced herself to meet his gaze. ‘That’s not funny, Aristo.’
‘It’s not meant to be.’ He looked at her, his gaze impassive. ‘If I’m to be a permanent fixture in George’s life then I need to be a permanent fixture in yours. Marriage is the simplest solution. We marry and George gets two parents and a stable, uncomplicated home life.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Is that what you think our marriage was like? Stable and uncomplicated?’ She wanted to laugh, except that it wasn’t even remotely amusing, just horribly familiar—for wasn’t this exactly why they’d got divorced? Because Aristo had made assumptions without so much as considering her point of view or her feelings.
‘I am not marrying you—remarrying you,’ she corrected herself.
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Tipping back his head, he stared down into her eyes. ‘Why not? It’s not something you haven’t done before.’
She gaped at him. ‘And it didn’t work.’ She enunciated each word with painstaking emphasis.
His dark gaze roamed so slowly over her face that she felt it like a caress.
‘As I recall it worked very well.’
Her breath was trapped in her throat. ‘I’m not talking about that,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m talking about everything else about our marriage. None of that worked.’
‘Didn’t work last time.’ He dismissed her remark with a careless lift of his shoulders. ‘But engaging with past mistakes is crucial to an improved performance, and this time we’ll be operating from a position of experience, not ignorance.’
She felt her heart beat faster. He sounded as if he was presenting a business plan, not discussing getting married. But then, even before their marriage had ended work had already consumed his life to the exclusion of everything else—including her.
‘This isn’t some management strategy,’ she said witheringly. ‘This is my life, Aristo.’
His eyes didn’t so much as flicker but she felt a sudden rise in tension.
‘No, Teddie. This is our son’s life. A son who doesn’t know who I am. A son I’ve already let down. No child should feel like that.’
He stopped abruptly, his jaw tightening, and Teddie felt some of her anger deflate. There was something in his response that made her flinch inside, as though the words had been dragged out of him.
Aristo caught his breath. Remembering his own childhood, the constant nagging sense of not belonging, he felt suddenly sick. Whatever else happened, his son was going to feel wanted by both his parents.
‘You haven’t let him down.’
Teddie’s voice jolted him back into real time and he gritted his teeth. She might have been his wife, but he’d never discussed his childhood with her. But the past was history. What mattered was George.
‘I wasn’t there—’ He broke off and stared away, his face taut and set. ‘All I want to do is make it up to him. And that is going to take more than a couple of trips to the swings.’
‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’
Teddie stared at his profile, her heartbeat rocking back and forth like a boat on a choppy sea. She could sense pain beneath his stilted words and she felt ashamed. Up until that moment she hadn’t truly considered his feelings beyond shock and anger, and that had been unfair of her—for how would she be feeling right now if the situation was reversed?
‘Maybe we should go away somewhere. That way you and George can spend time getting to know each other and we can start being open and honest with each other, because that’s the only way we’re going to make this work.’
Her words echoed inside her head, and for a moment she couldn’t believe that they had actually come out of her mouth. But it was too late to take them back—and anyway, with a mixture of shock and relief she realised that she didn’t actually want to. She needed to know now if Aristo was capable of being the father he claimed he wanted to be. Not in a few months, when it would destroy George if he left, just as she had been destroyed whenever her own father had disappeared from her life.
‘Do you mean that?’ His eyes were on hers, almost black, steady and unblinking.
‘You want to get married again?’ She phrased it as a question deliberately. ‘Well, let’s see if we can manage to spend a week together without wanting to kill each other.’
His eyes on her face were dark and intent. ‘Or to tear each other’s clothes off.’
Her pulse jolted forward, her body rippling into life as a wave of heat skimmed over her skin. For a moment she couldn’t speak. Her brain seemed to have seized up and she stared at him in silence, stalling until finally she could lift her chin and meet his gaze.
‘It would mean you taking time off work.’ She tried and failed to keep the challenging note out of her voice.
