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‘Did I miss something? Our marriage is real.’
That he could think so showed her the truth of his heart, and yet still she persisted. ‘I want us to be a real couple,’ she said with quiet determination.
‘Again, I feel as though I’ve missed something. We talk with each other, we eat together, we sleep together. How is this not real?’
She frowned. ‘Are you serious?’
‘What did you think we were doing, Theresa? On the island there was no one around to witness our behaviour, yet still we touched and kissed and walked along the beach holding hands. That wasn’t for the benefit of anyone but you and me. Because we like being that way.’
Liked being that way. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘I did like that.’
His eyes narrowed slightly at her use of a past tense.
‘But it’s not enough.’
‘Then what more do you want?’ he asked, as though she could demand a sliver of the moon and he’d find a way to give it to her.
‘I want you,’ she said simply.
‘You have more of me than any woman ever has.’
‘I want all of you,’ she insisted with a shake of her head. ‘I want you to love me, as a husband should love his wife. I want you to wake up in the morning and reach for me not because your body desires mine but because your heart beats for my heart. I want you to kiss me not because you like the way it feels but because your soul has a secret it must share with mine. I want you to be my husband because the idea of being anything else is torture.’
She tilted her face to his, hoping against hope that he would admit he felt the same way, but he was very still, and very, very silent. As the seconds stretched between them, without him responding, the hope that had started to build inside her dropped as a stone would in water.
‘When you suggested this marriage, you were adamant that you’d never love again.’
She closed her eyes, the response not a denial, and yet it may as well have been. ‘I remember.’
‘You’ve changed your mind?’
‘You changed my mind, actually. I wanted to keep this businesslike, just as we discussed, but every day we spent together was a form of nirvana, and bit by bit I found my way back—to myself, my happiness, my truth, and most importantly to the life I want to lead.’
‘Theresa.’ He groaned her name. ‘This is lust, not love. You were in a deeply unhappy marriage. You’ve never felt anything like what we share. But sexual infatuation isn’t the same thing as love. Nor is friendship. Give it time, you’ll see that I’m right.’
His rejection was like a rock, pelting into her belly. Friendship. Sexual infatuation. Was that all this was to him? She took a step back, drawing in a harsh breath. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said, twisting her lips into a tight smile. ‘But the fact you can even suggest that tells me how you feel about me.’
‘I care about you,’ he insisted reflexively. ‘You are important to me, and the last thing I want to do is hurt you, but for every part of you that wants our relationship to be real, I know I don’t want that. It is everything I have avoided my entire life. I have known, for a long time, that I am someone who values independence. I like the idea of being your husband, of living with you, but as two people on parallel journeys, not entwined in the ways you wish us to be.’
Her heart slowed to an almost-stop. He could not be clearer. Grief tore through her at the finality of his words, suddenly and completely, so much worse than what she’d felt as her marriage to Jonathan had turned dire. That hadn’t been soul-destroying because she’d never really loved him. Not like with Alex, who had always threatened to overwhelm her senses.
She lifted a hand to her mouth as she began to understand, only now, why his initial rejection had hurt so much. She’d been terrified. The love that she felt for him was too big, too much; it was a love that could sustain her or destroy her and now she felt the destruction raining down.
Marriage to Jonathan had taught her to conceal her feelings, and she did her best to employ those skills, looking at Alex carefully as she focused on her breathing. Only Alex wasn’t Jonathan, and she couldn’t keep the turmoil from the shadows of her eyes, nor could she still the breath that was rushing out of her in quick gasps.
‘Okay,’ she said quietly, the word heavy with her sad acceptance of his stance.
But he moved forward, catching her hands and holding them at chest height. ‘Listen, agape,this is for your good as much as mine.’ His eyes probed hers, as if willing her to understand. ‘I cannot be in a marriage like theirs. Love is—a force to be reckoned with, but not by me. I saw the flipside of it and would never willingly experience that, nor would I put you through it.’ He squeezed her hands.
‘But how do you know we’d be like them?’ she demanded. ‘Look at my parents! They’re happy together. Sure, they quarrel sometimes, but they love one another deeply and their lives are better for that.’
‘You don’t know what it was like,’ he said quietly, and sympathy flooded her, because he was right.
‘Are you saying you’re afraid of loving me?’
His eyes held hers for a long moment, the colour shifting as he contemplated that. ‘I won’t let it happen.’
‘What if it’s already happened?’
