by Dani Collins
Even though she ached rather desperately to feel his strong, naked body moving over and into hers.
Craving and humiliation tormented her through her shower and stayed with her when she crawled into bed. She wanted him so much. It made her bury her head under her pillow. She couldn’t live with a man she had no defenses against.
Steadfast to his word, Gideon didn’t disturb her. Adara woke to fading light beyond her closed curtains, startled she’d fallen asleep at all, head fuzzy from a hard four-hour nap.
Like an adolescent desperate for a hint of being popular, she checked her email before rising from bed, scrolling past the work ones that were piling up and honing in on Gideon’s.
Brief and veiled as all his communications tended to be, the message was nevertheless maddeningly effective at driving her into fresh clothes and across the hall.
Your brother called. Dinner?
CHAPTER FOUR
ADARA WAS SO anxious, she blurted out her questions before Gideon fully opened his door. “What did he say? Is he coming here?”
The swipe of her tongue over her dry lips, however, was more to do with Gideon’s bare chest beneath the open buttons of his white shirt than nerves at the thought of seeing her brother. Why had he brought those wretched jeans that were more white than blue, so old they clung to his hips and thighs like a second skin? No shoes either, she noted. The man was so unconsciously sexy she couldn’t handle it. She’d never known how to handle it.
It didn’t help that he looked at her like he could see into the depths of her soul. All that she’d told him today, the way he’d reacted, rushed back to strip her defenses down to the bare minimum.
“He won’t be back to the island for a couple of days,” he said, holding his door wider. “I had a table set on my balcony. They have our order, I only need to call down to let them know we’re ready for it.”
Adara folded her arms across the bodice of her crinkled white sundress, grossly uncomfortable as she watched him move to the hotel phone, his buttocks positively seductive in that devoted denim.
“I’d rather go down to the restaurant,” she said, stomach fluttering as she struggled to assert herself.
“It’s booked. And we can talk more privately here.” He projected equanimity, but he sent her an assessing glance that warned her he wasn’t one hundred percent pleased by this new argumentative Adara.
She swallowed, not at ease in this skin either, but she couldn’t go on the old way. At the same time, she couldn’t help wondering what had transpired in his conversation with her brother that they needed privacy. Nico lived here on the island, she reminded herself. It wouldn’t be fair to bandy about his private business in public.
Out of consideration to him, she stepped cautiously into Gideon’s room. The layout was a mirror of her executive room with a king-size bed, lounge area and workstation. Gideon had a better view, but she had taken what they had offered, not asking for upgrades. He, on the other hand, demanded the best.
Moving into the velvety night air of his balcony, she listened to him finalize their dinner then come up behind her to pour two glasses of wine. The sunset turned the golden liquid pink as he offered her a glass.
“To improved communication,” he said, touching the rim of his glass to hers.
Adara couldn’t resist a facetious “Really? And how long do you intend to make me wait to hear all that you and my brother said to each other?”
“I’ll tell you now and you can leave before the meals arrive, if you’re going to be so suspicious.” He sounded insulted.
Adara pressed the curve of her glass to her flat mouth, a tiny bit ashamed of herself. She lowered the glass without wetting her lips. “You can’t deny you used his call like some kind of bait-and-switch technique.”
“Only because I genuinely want to salvage this marriage. We can’t do that if we don’t see each other.” The sincerity in his gaze made her heart trip with an unsteady thump.
Why would he want to stay married? She was giving up on children. They both had enough money of their own without needing any of each other’s. She tilted her glass, sipping the chilled wine that rolled across her tongue in a tart, cool wave that... Bleh. An acrid stain coated her mouth.
Stress, she thought. Rather than being someone who drank her troubles away, she avoided alcohol when she was keyed up. The way her mother had drowned in booze, and the cruelty it had brought out in her father, had always kept Adara cautious of the stuff. Her body was telling her this was one of those times she should leave it alone.
Setting her glass on the table, she leaned her elbows on the balcony railing and said, “Would you please tell me what happened with Nico?”
“He called asking for us. The front desk tried my room first and I told him you were resting.”
“How did he even know we were here?” she asked with surprise.
“Ah. Now, that’s amusing.” He didn’t sound amused. He turned his back on the sunset and his cheeks hollowed as he contemplated some scowl-inducing inner thought. “I assumed he had a crack security team, but he has something far more sophisticated—an island grapevine. You didn’t tell the gardener you were related to him, so a strange woman asking about him set off speculation, enough that he got a call from a well-meaning neighbor and logged in to his gate camera. He recognized you and I guess he’s kept tabs on you over the years, too, because he knew your married name. The island only has four hotels, so it was quick work to track us to this one. He invited us to stay at his villa until he gets home.”
“Really?” Adara rotated to Gideon like a flower to the sun, buoyed by what Nico’s interest and invitation represented. He wanted to see her.
A thought occurred, making her clench her hand on the railing. Gideon was a very private person who kept himself removed from all but the most formal of social contact. He wouldn’t want to stay in a stranger’s house full of unfamiliar staff.
An excruciating pang of loss ambushed her. She would have to continue her journey alone, her request for independence and divorce granted even as her husband’s desire for reconciliation hung in the air. As cavalier as she wanted to be about leaving him, it wasn’t painless or easy. Her heart started to shrivel as she looked to the emptiness that was her future.
“I told him I would leave it up to you to decide,” Gideon continued. “But that I expected we’d move over there tomorrow because you’re eager to renew ties.” He took another healthy draw from his wine.
Adara blinked, shocked that Gideon would make such a concession. It made everything he said about salvaging their marriage earnest and powerful.
“You said that?” She reached out instinctively, setting her free hand on his sleeve so he would look at her, then feeling awkward when he only stared at her narrow hand on his tense forearm. She pulled her hand away. “I didn’t expect you to understand.”
“I’m not an idiot. I’ve got the message that there’s more going on than you’ve let me see.” Now his gaze came up and his dark-chocolate irises were intensely black in the fading light. “I want you to quit keeping so much to yourself, Adara.”
Longing speared into her, but so did fear. The words I can’t lodged in her throat. She never shared, never asked for help. She didn’t know how.
A knock at the door heralded room service. Gideon moved to let the server in and stood back as the meals were set out. Gideon’s knowledge of her tastes and his desire to please were well at the forefront. He’d ordered prawn soup, fried calamari, and baked fish fillets on rice with eggplant. Delicious scents of scorched ouzo and tangy mint made her mouth water. Their climb to the beach, coupled with the time change, had her stomach trying to eat itself. Much as she knew it would be better not to encourage either of them that their marriage had a chance, she couldn’t help sinking into the chair he held.
Winking lights bobbe
d on the water, live music drifted from the restaurant below and the warm evening air stroked her skin with a sensual breeze. The server closed the door on his way out and the big bed stood with inviting significance just inside the room.
And then there was the man, still barefoot, still with his shirt hanging open off his shoulders, the pattern of hair across his chest and abdomen accentuating his firm pecs and six-pack stomach. How he managed casual elegance with such a disreputable outfit, she didn’t know, but the woman in her not only responded, but melted into a puddle of sexual craving.
She was in very real danger of being seduced by nothing more than his presence.
Frightened of herself, she stole a furtive glance into his face and found him watching her closely, not smug, but his gaze was sharp with awareness that she was reacting to him. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment at not being able to help this interminable attraction to him.
Gideon couldn’t remember ever being so tuned to a woman, not out of bed anyway, and even at that he and Adara had fallen into certain patterns. Now that he was beginning to see how much she disguised behind a placid expression or level tone, he was determined to pick up every cue. The fact he’d just caught her lusting after him in her reserved way pleased him intensely, but her reluctance to let nature take its course confused him.
“I’ve been faithful to you, Adara. I hope you believe that.”
She stopped chewing for a thoughtful moment. Her brows came together in a frown he couldn’t interpret. Worry? Misery? Defeat?
“I do,” she finally said, but her tone seemed to qualify the statement.
“But?” he prompted.
“It doesn’t change the fact that one of the major reasons we married...” Her brows pulled again and this time it was pure pain, like something deeply embedded was being wrenched out of her.
He tensed, knowing what was coming and not liking the way it penetrated his walls either.
“Obviously I’m not able to give you children,” she said with strained composure. “I won’t even try. Not anymore.”
The bitter acceptance he read beneath her mask of self-possession, her trounced distress, was so tangible, he reached across to cover her shaking hand where she gripped her knife. Her knuckles felt sharp as barnacles where they poked against his palm.
He would give anything to spare her this anguish.
“Having children was a condition that came from your side of the table. It’s not a deal-breaker for me,” he reassured her.
If anything, she grew more distraught. “You never wanted children?”
Tread lightly, he cautioned himself, touching a thoughtful tongue to his bottom lip. “It’s not that I never wanted them. If that were true, I’d be a real monster for putting you through all you’ve suffered in trying to have one. I’m very—” Disappointed wasn’t a strong enough word.
“I’m sad,” he admitted, drawing his hand back as he took the uncharacteristic step of admitting to feelings. He’d been powerless at sea in a storm once and hadn’t felt as helpless and vulnerable as he had each time she’d miscarried. This one he’d learned about today was the worst yet, filling him with visions of coming upon her dead. It was too horrifying a thing to happen to a person even once in a lifetime and he’d been through it twice already. He couldn’t stomach thinking of finding her lifeless and white.
Then there was the bereft sense of loss that he’d known nothing about the baby before it was gone. He hated having no control over the situation, hated being unable to give her something she wanted that seemed as if it should be so simple. He hated how the whole thing stirred up old grief. He ought to be over forming deep attachments. He’d certainly fought against developing any. But he wished he’d known those babies and felt cheated that he hadn’t been given the chance.
He swiped his clammy palm down his thigh.
“I’m sad, too,” she whispered thickly, gaze fixed on her sweating glass of ice water. “I wanted a family. A real one, not a broken one like I had.”
“So, it wasn’t just pressure from your father to give him the heir your brothers weren’t providing?”
She made a motion of negation, mouth pouted into sorrow.
Damn, he swore silently, thinking his version of her as merely ticking children off the list with everything else would have been so much easier to navigate.
“I thought you were like my father, not really wanting a family, but determined to have an heir. A boy.” Of course, her tiny shrug added silently.
He could see wary shadows in her eyes as she confessed what had been in her mind. She wasn’t any more comfortable with being honest than he was. He sure as hell didn’t enjoy hearing her unflattering assessment of his attitude toward progeny.
“I wasn’t taking it that lightly,” he said, voice so tight she tensed. “But I didn’t know how much it meant to you.”
Any other time in his life he would have swiftly put an end to such a deeply personal conversation, but right now, unpleasant as it was, he had to allow Adara to see she wasn’t the only one hurt by this. She wasn’t the only one with misconceptions.
“I never knew my father, so that gave me certain reservations about what kind of parent I’d make. You’re not anything like my mother, which is a very good thing in most ways, but she did have a strong maternal instinct. I never saw you take an interest in other people’s children. Your family isn’t the warmest. Frankly, I expected you to schedule a C-section, hire a nanny and mark that task ‘done.’”
He’d seen this look on Adara’s face before, after a particularly offside, cutting remark from her father. Her lashes swept down, her brow tensed and her nostrils pinched ever so slightly with a slow, indrawn breath. He’d always assumed she was gathering her patience, but today he saw it differently. She was absorbing a blow.
One that he had delivered. His heart clutched in his chest. Don’t put me in the same category as that man.
“I’m just telling you how it looked, Adara.” His voice was gruff enough to make her flinch.
“Like you’re some kind of open book, letting me see your thoughts and feelings?” She pushed her plate away with hands that trembled. “I’ve told you more about myself today than I’ve ever shared with anyone and all I’ve heard back is that you’re sad I miscarried. Well, I should damn well hope so! They were your babies too.”
She rose and tried to escape, but he was faster, his haste sending his chair tumbling with a clatter, his hands too rough on her when he pulled her to stand in front of him, but her challenge made him slip the leash on his control.
“What do you want me to say? That I hadn’t believed in God for years, but when I took you to the hospital that first time, I gave praying a shot and felt completely betrayed when He took that baby anyway? That I got drunk so I wouldn’t cry? Every time. Damn it, I haven’t been able to close my eyes since the beach without imagining walking into your bathroom and finding you dead in a pool of blood.” He gave her a little shake. “Is that the kind of sharing you need to hear?”
Her shattered gaze was more than he could bear, the searching light in them pouring over his very soul, picking out every flaw and secret he hid from the rest of the world. It was painful in the extreme and even though he would never want to inflict more suffering on her, he was relieved when she crumpled with anguish and buried her face in her hands.
He pulled her into his chest, the feel of her fragile curves a pleasure-pain sting. She stiffened as he pinned her to him, but he only dug his fingers into her loose hair, massaging her scalp and pressing his lips to her crown, forcing the embrace because he needed it as much as she did.
“It’s okay, I’m not going to mess it up this time.” His body was reacting to her scent and softness, always did, but he ignored it and hoped she would too. “I’m sorry we keep losing babies, Adara. I’m sorry I didn’t let you see it affec
ts me.”
“I can’t try anymore, Gideon.” Her voice was small and thick with finality, buried in his chest.
“I know.” He rubbed his chin on the silk of her hair, distantly aware how odd this was to hold her like this, not as a prelude to sex, not because they were dancing, but to reassure her. “I don’t expect you to try. That’s what I’m saying. We don’t have to divorce over this. We can stay married.”
She lifted her face, her expression devastated beyond tears, and murmured a baffled “I don’t even know why you want to.”
Under her searching gaze, his inner defenses instinctively locked into place. Practicalities and hard facts leaped to his lips, covering up deeper, less understood motivations. “We’re five years into merging our fortunes,” he pointed out.
Adara dropped her chin and gathered herself, pressing for freedom.
His answer hadn’t been good enough.
His muscles flexed, reluctant to let her go, but he had to. Feelings, he thought, and scowled with displeasure. What was she looking for? A declaration of love? That had never been part of their bargain and it wasn’t a step he was willing to take. Losing babies he hadn’t known was bad enough. Caring deeply for Adara would make him too vulnerable.
He reached to right his chair, nodding at her seat when she only watched him. “Sit down, let’s keep talking about this.”
“What’s the point?” she asked despairingly.
The coward in him wanted to agree and let this madness blow away like dead ashes from a fire. If he were a gentleman, he supposed he’d spare her this torturous raking of nearly extinguished coals. Something deeply internal and indefinable pushed him to forge ahead despite how unpleasant it was. Somehow, giving up looked bleaker than this.
“You don’t salvage an agreement by walking away. You stay in the same room and hammer it out,” he managed to say.
“What is there to salvage?” Adara charged with a pained throb in her voice. Her heart was lodged behind her collarbone like a sharp rock. Didn’t he understand? Everything she’d brought to the table was gone.