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His laugh was a harsh sound of disbelief. “It’s not about what I want. I was wrong about you. I was so wrong.” He crossed the room, cupping her face in his hands so he could stare into her eyes. “And my mistakes are killing you, and I can’t stand to watch it.”
His eyes scanned her face, hungrily, desperately, seeing her tiredness and pain, knowing he’d caused it, and then he stepped back, as if taking control of his emotions.
“When we had dinner a few weeks ago, you thought I was judging you for giving up law, but I wasn’t. I was sitting there thinking how amazing you are, to have given up so much for our son. How selflessly you committed yourself to his life, at the expense of your own dreams. I was listening to you with admiration, not judgement.”
He sighed heavily, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck as he searched for the words he needed to find.
“I have been so angry these past four years. Do you have any idea what it’s like for a man like me to have been made so vulnerable? I lost everything in that damned accident.”
“You’re still alive,” she whispered huskily.
“No, you don’t understand.” He paced to the window and braced his hands on the window’s ledge, the only way he could stop himself from touching her again. That could stop him from using their unique brand of cataclysmic heat to bring her under his spell. “I’ve spent the last four years feeling as though something was missing. Not my memories, something more intrinsic. I have felt as though a part of me had been severed. Like an amputation. And then I saw you and my God, Elizabeth, it all came back. Not my memories, but the feeling that I was whole for the first time in four years.”
“Don’t,” she whispered shakily. “Don’t say this.”
“And when I found out about Joshua, it made me realise how much I’d lost. Not just you, but the whole life that should have been mine. And I took that out on you.”
“Because I was to blame,” she said stiffly. “When I think about what might have happened, if we hadn’t run into each other at that ball. If you hadn’t come to me the next day and found out about him for yourself…” An involuntary shiver danced along her spine. “I may never have told you.” The words were said with disbelief. “I was wrong not to tell you about him.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed, with a terse shake of his head and a crumbling of all his defenses. “But I can understand why you didn’t.”
He heard her rapid breathing and felt it inside his chest as though it was his own breath.
“That’s nice of you to say, but it doesn’t change the fact that I made a decision not to tell you we’d had a baby. You deserved better.”
He shook his head slowly from side to side. “I failed you, Elizabeth. In every way possible, I failed you.”
Her exclamation was a primal, enraged noise of disbelief. “You were in an accident. That’s hardly your fault. None of this is your fault. It’s all me. Do you understand that? You were innocent and I was, I am, guilty. Guilty as sin. You should spend the rest of our lives making me pay for what I took from you. Demean me. Embarrass me. Humiliate me.” She sobbed and his heart burst apart inside of his chest. “I deserve everything you can give me.”
“Stop!” He shouted, and the word rang through the cabin. He turned to face her, dragging his own breath in. “You raised our beautiful son on your own even when you were terrified and had to put all your dreams on hold. You did it to save my marriage –,”
“A marriage that was already broken,” she snapped, too upset to be mollified. “A marriage I would have known was over if I’d done the right thing. See? That’s my fault too.”
“It’s not your fault and damn it, you need to stop saying that.” He ignored all his common sense and pulled her into his arms and dropped his mouth to hers.
He kissed her as senseless as he was.
He kissed her until her body was pliant and her tongue was dueling with his and her fingers were curled in his hair and then he pulled away, because she was silent and she was drugged by their desire, as he needed her to be.
“I wasn’t there for you four years ago. I have put you through hell, thinking I was engaged. I would never have married Arabella if I’d known about you.” He padded his thumb over her lower lip, feeling her sharp intake of breath. “You have to know that I didn’t sleep with her. Not once. Our marriage wasn’t like that. There’s been no one in my life since you, Elizabeth. I think on some level my brain must have known that I made you a commitment four years ago, and was helping me honour that.”
He kissed her again, slower this time, but just as deep, just as desperately. “I will always be sorry for what I’ve done to you. Seeing you fall apart in front of my eyes this month and knowing that it was my hardness and darkness, my anger and contempt, that was doing that to you? I’ve treated you so badly and you didn’t deserve any of it.”
He dropped a hand and caught hers, running his finger over her wedding ring. “Let me start again, please.” He cleared his throat, thinking it was appropriate he was at a house on the edge of the world when he felt as if he was about to step off it. “I will annul this marriage if you wish. You will retain full custody of our son, as you should. I will be as much or as little a part of his and your life as you wish.” Every cell in his body rejected the offer but he knew he had to make it.
“Is that what you want?” She murmured softly, without giving him any clue how she felt.
“No.” This wasn’t a time for ambivalence. “I want to start this marriage properly. I want to start this marriage with the words I love you and I want to say that to you every day for the rest of our lives. I want to be here with you, my wife, knowing that you’re here because you feel the same way about me.” A muscle jerked in his jaw.
“Why are you saying this?”
“Because it’s true. We’ve had enough misunderstanding to last a lifetime. Now is a time for honesty. And I honestly love you. I completely love you.” She sobbed. He took a step closer. “I will always love you.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“What for?” He asked through narrowed eyes. “For being brave and beautiful and selfless and kind? For being honourable and lovely and everything I could ever want in this life? Or for giving me the most perfect son in the world and the chance to be a father to him?”
Another sob. This time, he caught it in his mouth, swallowing it, willing it to be the end of tears and sadness for her. He broke the kiss reluctantly.
