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Hadn’t he? It certainly hadn’t felt right when he had been crawling through the grounds, puking into the underbrush as he’d struggled to breathe through three broken ribs and stave off unconsciousness before he got to the road.
‘Maybe.’ He wanted to believe the faith in her eyes; he’d lived with the guilt of that night ever since he’d found out how destitute she and her mother had been. But that wasn’t the biggest problem. ‘The point is I’m not that boy any more. I look after number one now. Always. I can’t give you what you need.’
He brushed her short curls back from her cheek, pressed his lips to the soft skin. She shuddered with reaction, her wide amber eyes darkening on cue.
He forced himself to drop his hand, the rough chuckle strained.
‘Yes, you can. You already have. I love you, Dominic,’ she said, with such yearning, such honesty. ‘So much.’
The guilt gripped his insides.
This was his own fault. He’d stepped over a line three weeks ago in London, maybe even before that. Every time they made love, he wanted to absorb more of her kindness, her care, her tenderness—and Alison’s romantic nature, her sweet, compassionate heart had done the rest.
‘You can’t love me,’ he said, forcing his voice to remain firm, despite the riot of emotions churning in his stomach. ‘You don’t know me.’
He found his boxers and put them on. Then handed her his shirt and turned his back, waiting for her to cover herself. He threaded his fingers through his hair, his hand shaking. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t see the pale skin, the marks he’d left on it from their lovemaking, and tell her the truth.
‘You cannot love me, Allycat,’ he said, his voice breaking on the words. ‘No one can.’
* * *
‘Why not?’ Ally asked.
Dominic lifted his head, his chocolate eyes full of the secrets that he’d worked so hard to hide. And suddenly she understood, who he had been protecting all this time—with his insistence on them living separate lives, in separate countries. Why he had never wanted to stay overnight, why he had hidden the scars, denied their significance, even denied her feelings for him.
He hadn’t been protecting himself, he had been protecting her.
‘Why, Dominic?’ she asked again. ‘Why can’t I love you?’
He shook his head, looked past her, but the light had left his eyes, becoming flat and wary. ‘I am sorry I hurt you,’ he said with a finality that chilled her. ‘That was not my intention, even if it was inevitable. I will have my lawyers finalise the divorce.’
But as he turned to go, to walk out of her life, she rushed after him and grasped his arm.
‘Dominic, stop.’
He glanced down at her fingers, but she refused to remove them. She curled her hand around his forearm instead and gathered every ounce of her courage to say the one thing she knew he would not want to hear. The one thing he had denied for so long, the thing that had been inculcated in him as a young boy by a woman who had never wanted to celebrate his birth and a man who had acknowledged him on a whim one summer and then discarded him in the cruellest way imaginable.
‘You’re not worthless,’ she said.
He tugged his arm free, the amused frown a defence.
‘I know I’m not. LN is worth upwards of five billion dollars on the open market,’ he said.
‘You’re not worthless,’ she said again.
‘I know that,’ he replied. But he backed up a step, and her heart broke for him all over again.
The arrogance, the control, the desperate need not to accept her love. Not to need it. It had all been a defence, all along. Because he’d loved his mother and tried to gain his father’s respect and they had both thrown his need back in his face.
Of course he didn’t trust her feelings, because he didn’t trust his own.
This marriage had always been more than a business arrangement. His desire to cherish and protect her. His insistence that he invest in her business. His encouragement and concern. And she’d let her own insecurities blind her to that truth. She hadn’t challenged him...she hadn’t even put up a fight. But she was going to fight now.
‘You’re not worthless,’ she said again. ‘Whatever she made you think, whatever he told you. You?
??re not.’
He shook his head, but she could see the arrogance falling away. She’d struck right at the heart of his insecurities but she couldn’t let up now. However painful it was for him, however big a risk it was for her, she had to see this through.
