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Timoney kept her gaze on the dark blur of hedge and distant sky. “But I won’t be happy, will I?”
Crete made a low noise. Disbelief. Temper. Some mix of both. “Are you suggesting that you would be happier suffering with that pig?”
And Timoney blew out a ragged sort of breath. “Julian could never possibly break my heart. He could only harm me in small ways.”
“I think you underestimate him.”
“But you, Crete.” She frowned at him. “You want to drag me off and pretend that we can go back to some version of what we were? At what cost? I’ve already tried loving you enough for both of us, and that didn’t work. Why should this?”
She thought she could hear his teeth grind together, so hard was his jaw then.
“Maybe it would be better if we postpone these discussions until such a time as we know whether or not you are to be the mother of my child.” He bit the words out. “I suspect that will answer any questions you might have.”
“Putting aside the fact that you haven’t thought toaskwhether or not I wish to be a mother at all, much less of your child, what do you plan to do?” she demanded. “Will you fly me off to one of your solitary islands? Will you hide me away so that I dare not make you think about the things you’d rather avoid?”
“What will be the point in that?” he hurled at her. “When you would only haunt me either way?”
For a long while, as he drove through the darkness, Timoney sat with that.
And wished—oh, how she wished—that it could be enough.
Her cloak lay over her like a blanket and she pulled it tighter around her now, letting her eyes drift shut.
Once, it would have been enough to imagine she might haunt him. Once, knowing she affected him at all would have felt like a prize. Worth whatever she had to do to achieve it.
But she knew better now.
Timoney would never think it was enough until he admitted that he loved her the same way she loved him. Without limits. Without sense.
Wholly, desperately, and irreversibly.
Until then, she did not doubt that he wanted her. But she also knew he wouldn’t keep her.
So she kept her eyes closed and she let the rhythm of the wheels beneath her lull her into sleep.
Or into dreams, anyway, whether waking or not. Where she could pretend they might build a new life untainted by what had come before, or what she knew lay ahead.
Where she could pretend that love might finally be enough.
It was very early Christmas morning now, and maybe the true miracle was that she got this little space in between to imagine. To feel alive again. To remember the past without shutting down and to imagine the kind of future she knew they would never have.
To close her eyes in a speeding car and feel his presence all around her. To know, once more, the glory of his touch, and pretend for some little while that they could truly be together the way she’d always wanted.
It was a far better Christmas gift than she’d expected this year.
And Timoney would take it, for as long she could, before reality rained down upon her once again.
