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“I don’t want to be taken care of.”
Says the girl who wants a fairy-tale marriage, Nathan thought. If she’d give him half a chance, he could change her mind on that score, show her how thoroughly he could spoil her.
“Why are you fighting this so hard? We’re great together. Last night was amazing.”
Nathan rolled her beneath him, pinning her wrists above her head. Her muscles melted, body yielding. But her lips thinned in mutiny, and a resentful tempest darkened her eyes.
“Last night was about sex. That’s not what I’m looking for in a marriage.”
“It had better be or your husband will wander,” he teased, nuzzling her neck, enjoying her skin.
“What I mean is sex isn’t all I’m looking for in a marriage. I need love, too.”
“Love doesn’t last.”
“Sometimes it does.”
Feeling the tension in the slim body beneath his, Nathan released her wrists and shifted his weight off her. She slid out of bed.
His body ached as he watched her walk toward her discarded clothes. Was there anything sexier than a woman’s back, he wondered, linking his fingers behind his head. The sheet slid to his waist, stopped from going farther by his morning erection. A cold shower would take care of that. In the meantime, he savored the dimples at the small of her back on either side of her spine, the sexy swoop of her narrow waist, and the flare of her heart-shaped derriere. She bent to retrieve her underwear, and he sighed as the action shoved her luscious tush into the air.
Keeping her back to him, she stepped into her pale pink panties. Watching her slide the scrap of lace into place was almost as sexy as watching her remove it. Everything about her turned him on. When she was done hooking her bra, she pivoted to face him.
“The man I marry will want me because of who I am, not because of who my father is.”
Nathan leaned forward, running his eyes roaming over her half-naked form, filling the room with his desire for her. “I do want you.”
“But you don’t love me.”
Could you?
The question peeked at him from beneath her long lashes. In her expression, he saw the barest hope that he might someday change his mind about love.
Cody’s words came back to him. She wanted a fairy tale. A happily-ever-after. Is that what his mother had hoped for? His father’s wife? His brother, Sebastian, whose marriage had disintegrated after two short years? Probably. Instead, they’d gotten heartbreak.
Her lips curved downward as the silence between them stretched out. He hated seeing her unhappy, but it wasn’t fair to lead her on.
Finally, she got fed up with his lack of an answer. “I didn’t think so,” she muttered, scooping her shirt off the floor.
As much as he didn’t like to be the source of her pain, she deserved his honesty. She needed to understand that she’d have his respect, his fidelity, his affection, just not his love.
And in the end, both of them would be happier for it.
“Love isn’t what makes a marriage last,” he said. “Or there wouldn’t be half as many divorces. You need mutual respect and shared goals.”
“I agree that marriage takes work,” she said. “Supporting each other’s hopes and dreams. Listening and compromising. But wouldn’t those things be easier with an emotional bond? Something powerful and all-consuming that keeps you together no matter how many curveballs life throws at you?”
The raw certainty in her eyes speared through him. A fervent crusader, she’d made a convincing argument for love. It might work on another man, one who hadn’t seen the ravages of love up close and personal.
“And what happens when that powerful and all-consuming emotion dies?” he countered.
Hands on her hips, she pressed her lips together and glared at him. “I’ll bet you think you’re better off not letting anyone in. That way you don’t get hurt. But isn’t that awfully lonely? Don’t you ever wish you could let someone take care of you for a change?”
And risk being disappointed when she stopped? “I’m a big boy,” he said. “I haven’t needed anyone for a long time.”
She slipped the shirt over her head. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she murmured and with one last searching glance, strode from the room.
Nathan threw off the sheet and stood, irrationally annoyed. He didn’t need her pity. Or her love. He just needed her hand in marriage and her body in his bed.
Dismissing what felt suspiciously like regret, he headed for the shower.
Emma knelt on the floor, surrounded by the jewelry she’d made, and assessed a month’s worth of work. Ten necklaces, a dozen pairs of earrings, fifteen rings and six bracelets. It wasn’t enough. But it would have to do. In two days she was on her way to Baton Rouge for the art and design show. Her four weeks of exhausting work were at an end. This weekend would determine how the rest of her life would play out.
