‘That’s bull. You aren’t the kind of man who would do anything he hated.’
‘It was the perfect rock and a hard place,’ he said with understated determination. ‘Your father made me swear I wouldn’t tell you...’
‘How did you think I’d forgive this?’ she asked. ‘How did you think we’d move past it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘But I knew we would. I know we will.’
‘How? How can we?’
‘Because I am me, and you are you, and together we have found something so special, so unique, that it is irreplaceable.’ His eyes forced hers to meet his, and the challenge was impossible to ignore. ‘I worried about you not knowing. I worried about you finding out and about you losing your father. I worried about your anger and your hurt. But I never once thought it would be the end for us.’
He stared at her still, his eyes begging her to see, to understand.
‘Can you look at me now and think there is a life which we don’t share?’
‘It was all a lie.’ She was numb.
‘Nothing about what we are was a lie.’
‘Yes, it was! You were my... You woke me up, remember? With you I became a proper, full person. I felt whole and mature, and the most like myself I’ve ever felt. And really you were just an extension of Daddy. Managing me and infantilising me out of a mistaken belief that I can’t look after myself. I thought you saw me as an equal, but instead I was your obligation.’
‘At first,’ he said, the words a thick concession. ‘But you dressed me down at our wedding and I knew that Col was wrong about you. You were naïve, yes, but not weak. Not incapable of handling yourself.’
He reached out and took her hand in his, and his relief at her letting him hold it was immense.
‘I’m not here to protect you. I’m here because I need you—and right now you need me. That’s marriage.’ He stroked the soft flesh of her inner wrist. ‘I want more than anything to be married to you. Not because your father sought it, but because of who you are and what we have come to mean to one another.’
The words were like little blades, scraping against the walls she’d been building brick by brick around her heart.
And yet she wasn’t ready.
She couldn’t forgive him.
‘It’s too soon. Too much.’ She blinked away tears and pulled her hand back to herself. ‘If you’d slept with another woman I would find it easier to forgive.’
His laugh was a harsh sound of disbelief. ‘You are grieving, and I am trying to give you the space you need. I do not want to crowd you. And I certainly don’t want to fight with you. But ask yourself this question: What could I have done differently? I spoke to your father weekly, urging him to tell you about his illness. He was adamant that you should not know.’
‘You spoke to him weekly?’ If anything her sense of betrayal yawned wider.
‘He wanted to be reassured you were happy.’
‘Oh, what a good friend you were!’ she snapped, but the indignation of her words was somewhat marred by the sob that strangled them. ‘You went above and beyond to make me happy.’
A frown was etched over his handsome face.
‘You made it so obvious that you weren’t attracted to me, and still you seduced me. You made me think I was very happy.’
‘None of that had anything to do with your father.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘It was all because of him. He pulled the strings—just like he did with me my whole life.’ She stamped her foot. ‘You were supposed to be mine. Rome was meant to be mine.’
‘I didn’t marry you with any expectations that it would become a real marriage. That was all us. I fell in love with you, Emmeline. Not because of Col but because of you and me.’
The words were sucking her in—so sweet, so exactly what she needed to hear that she rejected them instantly.
‘No.’
She held a hand up in the air. To silence him? Or slap him?
‘Lying to me about Dad, keeping his secret—that’s completely incompatible with love. Love is honesty and truth. It’s trust.’
‘In a perfectly black and white world, perhaps. But nothing about this was simple. My loyalties were split from the moment I met you. I made him a promise before I even properly knew you. I felt obligated to stick to it. That’s the man you love.’
She blinked, felt her heart bricking itself up, its walls forming more easily now they had well-worn foundations.
‘I don’t love you,’ she mumbled tightly. ‘I never did. I see that now. I loved Rome. I loved sex. But you? No. I don’t even like you.’
She spun on her heel and walked quickly from the lounge, waiting until she was in her own room before she let out the sob that was burning inside her.
That night, her dreams were terrifying.
Her mother stood behind Emmeline, her face pinched, dressed all in black.
‘See? This is what you deserve, Emmeline. You are alone. All alone. Nobody will be there for you. And that’s as it should be.’
* * *
It was the crying that woke him. Emmeline had been tossing and turning and crying out in her sleep almost nightly for the whole month they’d been at Annersty. But this was different.
Her sobbing was loud, and when she began to say, ‘Go away! Go away! Go away!’ again and again in her sleep he felt a cold ache throb through him.
He’d stayed because he’d believed it to be what she needed. But was it possible he was hurting her more with his presence?
I don’t even like you.
That was possibly more damning than her insistence that she was angry. It was such a cold denial of all that they were.
Torn between going to her and letting her settle herself, he was just standing to move into her bedroom when she went
