Part 24 (2/2)
Her lips turned down. ”I'd rather laugh than cry.” She turned away and gazed across the choppy water. ”You can see what everyone thinks when they look at us. That waiter this morning leered.”
”We're newlyweds,” he said somberly. ”If your stepbrothers inquire, I want people to say we acted like any couple.”
”Then perhaps you should touch me,” she said softly but implacably. She still stared over the restless iron gray sea.
Silence fell. While the waves rolled and the gulls cried and traffic clattered along the street behind them.
”Charis...”
She turned and the humor had fled. ”You touched me last night.”
He clenched his gloved hands by his sides. Clearly his sweet young wife was in the mood to torment him. ”I didn't think you'd want to talk about what happened,” he said in a tight voice. Christ, he didn't.
”Why would you think that?”
Because I hurt you. Because I made a tragic mess of something that should be wondrous. Because I can't stop thinking how it felt to be inside you.
”Because it's done.”
An inadequate, cowardly answer. He knew it. So, blast her, did she.
”You're crossing a line through the subject of our...marital relations, never to revisit it?” Color still marked her high cheekbones. She wasn't as easy with this discussion as she wanted to appear.
”Don't you think that's best?”
She arched her elegant light brown eyebrows, a few shades darker than the bright glory of her hair under the neat chip bonnet. ”No negotiation?”
He released a heavy sigh. ”Revisiting last night should be as painful for you as it is for me.”
She straightened from the wall and sent him a direct look. ”You...you did what you had to.”
”There was no joy.” If only someone would approach so she'd abandon this conversation. But the promenade around them remained empty.
”Practice makes perfect,” she said staunchly.
Every brave word gashed at him. ”Not in this case.”
He longed to tell her he'd give up his hope of heaven to change desolate reality. He longed to tell her she was more beautiful than the dawn. He longed to tell her he died of desire for her.
What good was any of that when, if he touched her, he'd only hurt her?
Her jaw set in a stubborn line. ”I don't accept that.”
”You have to.” Why couldn't she see there was no hope? After how he'd botched things last night, she should shrink from him as if he had the plague.
”The Westons are fighters, Gideon,” she said firmly. Her throat moved as she swallowed, another indication that beneath her determination, she was nervous. ”I want a husband in my bed. I intend to do anything I can to achieve that end. Anything. I know you want me. I'll use it against you if I can.”
Oh, dear Lord in heaven. He supposed he should admire her honesty in admitting her strategy, but all he could think of was the lacerating misery awaiting both of them. ”We made a bargain...”
She shook her head. ”No, you set ultimatums.”
”You agreed.” He couldn't keep a hint of temper from showing. It was difficult enough fighting for his own equilibrium without having to fight her as well.
”Yes, I did. Then.” When she looked down, gold-tipped lashes fanned the hectic pink of her cheeks.
Need, primitive, uncontrollable, gnawed at him. How much easier this would be if she wasn't so beautiful.
Or would it?
He'd liked her from the start. His longing wasn't rooted in her appearance, spectacular as that was. He wanted her because of her pure, unquenchable spirit.
His voice roughened with urgency. He admired her courage, but she was tragically mistaken in what she wanted. ”Charis, I beg of you, don't push this. I know what I ask seems cruel. But crueler by far to keep you clinging to futile hope. You'll end up destroying us both.”
The fugitive color fled as quickly as it had arisen, and the eyes she raised were dull with misery. ”It could save us too.”
Regretfully he shook his head. ”This isn't a fairy story, my wife.”
Her lips flattened in displeasure. ”No, it's a story where you consign me to another man's bed. Is that what you want?”
The prospect of her sharing last night's intimacies with another lover made him burn, like someone brushed his skin with naked flame. The idea of anyone but him touching her, hearing her sigh-G.o.d, pressing into that tight sheath-hurled him to the verge of murder.
”Yes.”
”Liar.”
She cast him a scornful look, turned, and marched back toward the hotel, her boots clicking on the cobblestones. Helplessly Gideon stared after her. Unless he was very much mistaken, his wife had just declared war.
When he was younger, before Rangapindhi, he'd occasionally imagined taking a bride. The idea had seemed simple, inevitable, uncomplicated.
Hopelessly naive.
He bit back a curse. He'd known when he came up with this plan to save her, it meant suffering. He'd known it required will and sacrifice.
But until his wife threatened to seduce him, he had no idea what h.e.l.l awaited.
She was yards away, walking with a natural self-confidence that attracted more than one admiring glance from the few men braving the cold.
Impudent dogs.
Biting down his rage with her, with himself, with the whole d.a.m.ned world, he strode after her. His eyes never wavered from the saucy sway of her hips.
She didn't look at him when he caught up. For the sake of appearances, he grabbed her arm. Even through his glove and her merino sleeve, he felt the tingling warmth of her skin. The ineffable life force that had set his desire afire when he held her last night.
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