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‘What “whole love thing”?’
‘The whole “you’ll never love anyone again” thing,’ she said, forcing herself to meet his eyes. She saw nothing in his that gave her reassurance.
‘I’m very sure,’ he said simply, but she knew it was a veneer. He was treading carefully, his hackles rising, his concerns shifting so he was seeking to minimise risk.
But she’d come this far. She couldn’t walk away now. ‘Because, the thing is, I just wonder if maybe love doesn’t have ideas of its own.’
‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘Don’t you think there might be something more here than either of us realised?’
He stared at her without speaking. Only his chest moved, rapidly, so she dropped her eyes to it for a moment, before looking at him once more.
‘I think our marriage is based on a pregnancy that was an accident. That’s not love.’
She pulled a face, hoping the grimace would hide the waves of uncertainty that were rolling through her. Was he right? Or was she? ‘And what about everything that came after? This last month has been so much more than I expected. Getting to know you, spending time together...’
‘Yes, it’s defied my expectations too.’ He spoke gently, almost sympathetically. ‘But that’s sex, azeezi,nothing more.’
Her heart stammered; she shook her head. ‘I don’t agree.’
‘You do not have much experience,’ he pointed out softly.
‘And you do, but that doesn’t make you right and me wrong.’
‘In this, it does.’ All so gentle! So compassionate! That made her want to break something! She didn’t want to be treated like a fragile glass vase.
‘So you’re saying we can’t have great sex and also fall in love?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded his head to underscore his verbal response.
‘Are the two mutually exclusive?’
‘No. But love is out of the question for me.’ He lifted a hand to her face, but she jerked away from his touch on autopilot—she couldn’t bear the kindness, it made her want to cry, and she wouldn’t show her vulnerabilities like that. ‘I’ve been honest with you about this. I have never wanted you to care for me. I should have thought it impossible, after the things I said...’
‘Initially, perhaps. I didn’t fall in love with you because you’re perfect.’ She sighed. ‘If anything, I fell in love with your imperfections, with the way you fought yourself, fought me, fought for our children. I fell in love with you and I needed you to know that, before we got married. I told you I wouldn’t lie to you, so I’m not going to. When I say those vows, I’ll mean them.’
‘India, no.’ His features tightened and he stepped backwards, panic radiating from him. ‘Listen to me.’ There was a new kind of urgency in his tone now. ‘This is impossible. You’re mistaking lust for love. I understand that—our chemistry is off the charts, but there’s nothing more between us than sex. And one day that will fade, we will no longer want each other like this, and you will forget all about loving me. Trust me, this is fiction, fantasy, not fact.’
If it weren’t for the tree at her back, she might have stumbled. His words were so completely the opposite of what she’d expected that she didn’t know how to respond to them at first.
‘Let me get this straight,’ she murmured distractedly. ‘You think the only thing we share is sex?’
He compressed his lips, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘Obviously it’s a huge part of it.’
India sucked in a breath that didn’t begin to fill her lungs. ‘Did you ever stop to wonder why?’
‘No.’ He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I get the basics of sexual attraction. I don’t need to analyse things further than that.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘By your own admission, you’ve never wanted anyone like you’ve wanted me. Haven’t you stopped to ask yourself why that is? Maybe, just maybe, our chemistry is because of our connection, our compatibility.’
‘I wanted you the first night I met you, when I knew nothing about you. That wasn’t love, it was desire, plain and simple.’
‘And revenge,’ she remembered with a shudder.
‘No, we’ve dealt with that. I saw you and wanted you before I even knew you were with Ethan. The revenge thing was just convenient.’
‘Not for me,’ she pointed out, then shook her head, refusing to be drawn into an argument they’d already had out. ‘But that’s beside the point now. Since I’ve arrived here, since we agreed to get married, things have changed between us. Like you just said, you’ve seen beyond your first impressions, you’ve got to know the real me.’
