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"You are not a whore."
"Aren't I? You're paying me half a million dollars to fuck you for a year."
"You signed the contract." My voice has hardened as I'm sure my expression has too, and I twist my mouth downward. "If you're waiting for me to fall in love with you, it will never happen."
A cold spike pierces my chest, but she needs to understand, to stop waiting for me to become a different man.
"I'm not trying to make you love me," she says. "A few days ago on the green, after your impressive demonstration of caber tossing, I asked you to show me a little common decency. You stayed with me on our wedding night, for heaven's sake. You fell asleep with me the night we met and only left at dawn. Is it really such a hardship for you to let me into your bedroom?"
"If you leave me now, you'll walk away with nothing. Not one pound of my money."
Her glare softens into something much worse—pain. "I know what you're doing. This is how you keep your distance. You want me to think you're a cold bastard, so I won't like you anymore, but I'm on to you. If you were really a bastard, you wouldn't act like one."
"Your bum's oot the windae."
"I am not talking nonsense." She must see the surprise on my face, because she straightens and lifts her chin. "Erica told me what that saying means. You're the one who spouts nonsense on a regular basis."
Says the woman who likes to "spin" on the lawn.
"What I said about bastards," she explains, "means they are bastards, all the time, it's no act. You have to put on a show to convince me you're a jerk, but I see what you're doing, and I don't buy it."
I crook my fingers on the desktop like claws. "Separate bedrooms. That's my final word on the matter."
"Your summary judgment, you mean. I don't want your money, I never did. If you think that's why I married you, then you are the most clueless, blindest man on earth."
She whirls toward the door.
I catch up to her at the threshold, snaring her arm. "Don't love me, Emery. I will only hurt you. Willnae mean to, but…"
My voice trails off, and I let my hand fall away from her arm.
"You are hurting me," she says, "every night when you walk out the door. You'd better think about what you really want, Rory. If we keep going this way, I'll have to do whatever is necessary to protect myself."
She walks away from me without glancing back.
I sink into my chair again, shutting my eyes, and pray she heeds my warning. Loving me is the worst mistake any woman can make.
