She gritted her teeth. ‘That’s just sex. And frankly, we’re using it to paper over the cracks in this arrangement.’
‘We what?’ He dragged in a sharp breath. Then another. ‘You’re complaining about our sex life?’
‘You use it to avoid emotional intimacy.’
He froze. ‘And what do you use it for?’
She couldn’t answer that. She just couldn’t.
He stared at her. ‘You read too much into everything. You attach meaning to memories that don’t actually matter.’
‘Don’t they matter? Don’t you think they impact how we both choose to live?’ She stepped closer, suddenly shaking with emotion, with how important it was to cut through to what was vitally important. And honest.
‘Yes, I’ve been hurt before and I don’t want to be hurt again,’ she admitted. ‘And if I stay with you, I will be. I’ve tried to treat this like an arrangement, but I can’t. I’m not like you, I can’t keep my emotions “under control”, and I don’t want to.’ She inhaled a deep breath and forced herself to finish. ‘We’ll work together to take care of the baby, but being together in an empty relationship isn’t right. I can’t keep sleeping with you, Leon. It’s destroying me.’ It hurt her so much to say it, but it had to be done. ‘You deserve more than this...facade. You deserve love. And so do I.’
She wanted him to find love. He deserved it after everything he’d missed out on. And she wanted to find real love for herself too. To be loved. While she could be everything but the one he truly wanted, that wasn’t enough for her. She wasn’t going to put herself through the heartache of being with a man who didn’t really want her. Her child needed to see both its mother and its father, loved and loving. If not to each other, then to significant others when and if they appeared.
She’d tried, but she couldn’t be like him. Nor was she the one for him. Because if she was he’d have recognised it already—he would have felt it. He would have known he didn’t need that contract to bind her to him. He was a smart guy, not slow.
‘Love?’ he scoffed. ‘There’s no such thing as love. That’s the rubbish of fairy tales and films. There’s just reality and practicality. There’s lust and there are contracts.’
And that just proved her point completely. Because for her there was love. She felt it for him. She ached to give him everything she possibly could, but he didn’t feel that way for her. She braced tightly against the painful intensity of rejection.
This is the right decision, Ettie. Right, right, right.
Leon stared at Ettie’s expression in the silence that followed his outburst. Dread surged in his belly, a hideous whirlpool of horror and regret. He shouldn’t have said that. He shouldn’t have crushed her dreams with his icy reality. She hadn’t deserved that. Yet he’d had to be honest with her.
He cleared his throat. ‘We can make this work, Ettie. We will make it work.’
‘Yes,’ she nodded curtly, ‘but not the way you want it to.’
He glared, waiting for her to explain.
‘You might be prepared to settle, but I’m not.’ She straightened. In a blink the distress was gone from her eyes. There was only determination there now.
‘Settle?’ The chill spread from his gut to his limbs and then—blessedly—up to his brain. Finally he could think clearly.
‘I do believe in that kind of love, Leon.’ She looked up at him. Emotion shadowed her eyes, but dignity shone clearly from within them. There were no tears, only resolution. ‘I’ve fallen in love with you,’ she said. ‘That’s why I can’t stay and why I won’t marry you.’
He stared, dumbstruck, as his brain short-circuited. She what?
‘How can that possibly surprise you?’ she asked with a shake of her head. ‘How could I not...? But you don’t love me and that’s okay.’
‘You’re not in love with me,’ he blurted mechanically.
She was confusing it with gratitude. He was the first person to do things for her. Not betray her. Not abandon her. Not take and take and take. And she had such little experience with sex, she didn’t realise it was just physical pleasure. He’d rubbed her up the right way, that was all.
‘It’s the lifestyle,’ he said roughly.
Now her expressive eyes flashed—all anger. ‘I don’t fall in love with things, Leon. You insult me. Your contract insulted me. I’d still love you even if you were poor and lived in a cardboard box. That you felt I needed some reward for staying with you...’ She shook her head.
That feeling inside roiled and burned but still he rejected what she was saying.
Her expression hardened in the face of his silence. ‘You don’t get to deny my feelings or my wishes. You don’t get to make all the decisions.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘You’ve found out all my other secrets—you might as well know everything. I fell in love with you probably that very first night. But you don’t feel the same. You’re trying to do the right thing, but it’s too much to ask of you—it’s obvious you don’t really want to when you can’t bear to reveal anything of yourself and you can’t trust me for more than five minutes. And I get why, I do. You shouldn’t have to open up to someone you don’t care about. But don’t deny what’s true for me. It’s painful enough. You don’t want emotional intimacy with me. Fine, don’t have it. But you don’t get physical either. You don’t get to have the cake and eat it too. You want too much from me. I can’t separate it the way you do.’
She did not love him. He could deny that and he would. ‘You barely know me.’
‘I know all I need to know. Who you are is what you do. And you do loyal. Kind. Funny. Determined. Stubborn to the point of—’ She broke off as her breathing hitched.
Yet it wasn’t enough, was it? He’d given her everything he could and it still wasn’t enough.
‘You don’t have to feel bad,’ she added, her clear-eyed gaze narrowing on him. ‘You don’t have to pretend any more. You can find someone else.’
Is that what she wanted?
‘How bloody generous of you, Ettie,’ he said scathingly. ‘You haven’t even given this a chance. You say you love me but you can walk out just like that?’ He snapped his fingers as his anger flared. ‘Not much of a love really.’
Her face whitened. ‘I also love myself. I am worthy of that job promotion. I deserve the great sex life you’ve shown me is possible. You’re the one who’s taught me I deserve more. Not to expect less or settle for worse. And thank you for that. But now I have to protect myself.’ She lifted her chin. ‘You don’t love me.’
‘That’s not the point.’ He dismissed the statement.
‘It is.’
He was so furious he couldn’t look at her any more. Wildly he glanced around and saw the herbs on the windowsill had become little more than a collection of musty leaves in the pots. Without her presence and care they hadn’t taken long to wither and die. So typical. He felt his grip on himself slip as that monstrous crushing inside threatened to kill every last brain cell he had and render him only capable of...what?
Oh, his body knew what it wanted—to prove to her that she couldn’t resist him again. Hell, he needed to get away before he totally lost it.
She’d completely rejected everything he’d offered. She’d rejected him.
‘At the very least I can house you,’ he said icily. ‘Not here.’ He retrieved the ring from the table. It burned his palm and he shoved it into his pocket. He stalked to the door, needing to leave before he said or did something he’d regret. ‘I’ll be in touch to make new arrangements.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LOVE? SHE WANTED LOVE?
Leon was living in a perpetual state of frustration. With every breath he whipped from fury to wrath and back again.
Let her go. Let her stay in her horrible, small apartment. Let her be alone and miserable if that was what she was determined to do. He was happy to have his house bac
k to himself, right? He’d found it hard sharing with someone for the first time in his life. He’d go back to how it had been—how he liked it. Alone, independent, strong, easy.
But he paced the vast, empty space until the puppy got too tired to follow his every step. He sank onto the sofa and scooped the little guy up. The pup immediately curled into a ball on his stomach and began to snooze.
Leon had no such respite. He’d done everything he could for Ettie. He’d given her a far better home. He’d looked after her health and freed her from that financial burden, he’d recognised her worth at work. He’d had her well-being foremost in his mind. What more did she want?
But he hadn’t done everything.
The inner voice repeated it—over and over. From a whisper it strengthened in volume and insistence until it was ringing incessantly in his head.
The void she’d left was huge. She’d taken more than he’d realised.
The baby. Right? It was just the baby. He reasoned his way through the bereft sensation. She was taking away his child. And with that recognition his anger returned in full force. He railed inwardly at her stubborn selfishness.
He’d been told so often that people would only want things from him. Money, mostly. Money and the kind of “doors open” access his privilege engendered. And that wisdom had proven true often enough in the past. But not this time.
He’d given everything to her. At least everything that was easy to give—his money, his success, his home. What was harder was what was hidden. What he didn’t even want to face himself. The security she craved wasn’t financial. What she’d said she wanted—needed—was emotional. And that was impossible. He didn’t believe in love. He didn’t even know what it was. Yet with every day that dragged, that bereft feeling only built a bigger and bigger hole inside. It wasn’t the thought of the baby at all.
He put a security team back on her. He initiated all the paperwork he could think of to secure both her rights and his, ditching that damned contract he’d drawn up over that weekend to try to hold the complications at bay. But three interminable days later, he still couldn’t sleep at night. Worry nagged.
He hated thinking of her being alone. He hated remembering her words. But they echoed relentlessly—a melody to his own berating beat—dragging in loss, lust, unbearable loneliness...and at the heart of that hideous mix grew an intolerable, impossible yearning.
I love you, Leon.
It was the first time in his life someone had said that to him and actually meant it. He knew, to his bones, how much she thought she’d meant it. She barely knew him but she believed her words. He’d been unable to. And he’d been right because in the next second she’d snatched them back again by rejecting everything he’d offered. By rejecting him. She didn’t love him enough to stay. She didn’t even want his damn money. She was so determined to be independent, all because he couldn’t what—wail on about his past? Open up to her? Love her?
Didn’t she understand that he couldn’t? He didn’t know how.
He knew she wouldn’t deny him access to his child. She’d just denied him access to her. She’d taken her company, her attention, her presence from him. And somehow that was the worst. He couldn’t stand it. Nor could he fathom why it was so horrendous.
So he did what he’d always done: he fought for control. He isolated himself. He worked round the clock. And he avoided all contact with anyone at Cavendish House. They’d be Team Ettie all the way. He didn’t blame them. He understood their loyalty.
He also knew Ettie needed to be loved. That was why she worked for everyone—she ached for any kind of affection. She didn’t realise that all those people cared about her without her having to work for it; it was because of the person she was—sunny, generous, interested, enthusiastic about everything in life...
And he’d been stupid enough to tell her he didn’t believe in love.
He sat on the floor of his home and rubbed the puppy’s ears and finally admitted to himself that he was a coward. More than that, he was a jerk. He’d not accepted what she’d offered. He’d not even acknowledged the truth of it.
The fourth morning it was worse. He couldn’t stand it any more. The isolation and gaping hole inside widened with every angry second that ticked by and today it was an actual physical pain. And that was when it finally hit—it wasn’t rage he felt. It was hurt.
Deep, incurable hurt. He was so vulnerable. She’d prised layers of protection and defence open and then she’d struck him hard.
Not even the unconditional trust of the little puppy soothed him. The dog just made it worse, because he made caring—adoration—seem easy. Not to Leon it wasn’t. He closed his eyes and leaned against the cool window overlooking his immaculate garden.
Ettie had given him the smallest, tantalising glimpse of something he’d never imagined. When she’d said she was in love with him, he’d had that heart-busting vision of a small family filled with fun and laughter and passion. A family that was together. The kind of family he’d never had.
In his childhood family there’d been no honesty. No laughter. No love. Nothing but cold cruelty from his mother. And when he’d tried to talk to his father, the older man had shut down. Dismissed his truth. Silenced him.
But hadn’t Leon just done the exact same thing to Ettie? Hadn’t he shut down and closed off contact? He’d refused to even acknowledge the problem, let alone try to resolve it.
While he’d silenced her, Ettie had never silenced him. She’d let him speak. She’d wanted him to speak more. She hadn’t judged him for his words, she’d just accepted him.
Bile rose in his throat. He did not want to be like his father. And he sure as hell refused to be like his mother. Why had he thought any of what that woman had wanted was okay?
Never show weakness. Not anger. Not fear. No tears. No laughter.
Even when he’d learned to bury his emotions, his mother hadn’t loved him. Nothing he could’ve done could have changed that. She’d taught him all the wrong things. And he’d been so busy fighting for those tangible signs of success, he’d not stopped to see how much he was missing. How much his mother had actually won—because here he was, living a life so isolated, he might as well be back in that cupboard she’d locked him in.
Ettie was the one who was right. Expressing emotions wasn’t the same as losing control of them. And even if he did lose control? What then? What was the worst that could happen? The worst had already happened.
Ettie had left him.
And now here he was in his huge house—isolated, cold and stuck in the emotional stunting of his past. He’d thought he was over it, that he was free of that pain. But he wasn’t beyond it at all. His own beautiful big house offered no more comfort or companionship than that dark, hideous cupboard of his childhood torment.
That constriction inside—the tight-bound hard knot inside him—finally loosened. And it hurt like hell. But he would not be an absent father to this child—physically or emotionally. He had to make more of an effort because he didn’t want his child turning out like him. He gazed sightlessly over the garden as he fully realised the painful, amazing truth. That knot inside—he’d hardened it, tried to cover it up, because it was more than a crusted nugget of hope. It was his heart.
Ettie had breathed life into it, blowing on old embers to bring back a flame. His inner fire was flickering now but it needed more fuel.
While he’d do anything to protect his baby, what was even more incredible—wonderful and terrifying—was that he’d fallen so completely in love with its mother. It wasn’t just the physical contact, but everything she brought with her. Her smile had put sparkle into his life. He simply wanted to put his battered heart into her hands and be with her. And he wanted to care for her in all ways. Her words hadn’t just unsettled him, they’d also left him raw. She had a power he’d never have believed it would be possible for anyone to have over him.
He was still a little angry with her for that. And yet he knew he too had the power to gravely hurt her. He already had. But he’d never do that again.
He thought back to that very first night—to the way she’d run away the next morning, too scared to even look him in the eye. Braced for rejection, for betrayal, she’d been so certain she was going to be hurt. She’d run because he’d not given her what she needed.
But in order to get her back he had to open up in the way he’d told himself he never would, that he’d never thought he could. Heartache forced him forward. There was no alternative, no getting over this. The gap she’d left in his life was crippling.
He’d thought he had it all. He’d thought he was invincible. But he had nothing of real value. Now he’d finally realised, he knew he had to do something about it.
There was action and there was action.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS MOVING DAY.
Ettie looked around her little flat. Not much had changed in the days since she’d left Leon and come back to live alone.
He’d been in touch as promised, but only via paperwork. Formal, bloodless documentation offering her an apartment in Cavendish House to make it easy for her to work and be near to his home. It didn’t matter how near or far from her he was, he still killed her heart, but she couldn’t be under the same roof as him, couldn’t sleep with him any more, and that would happen if she stayed at his house. He didn’t love her and that was fine, but to remain and give everything of herself would slowly destroy her.
At least Leon travelled for work. She’d have moments of pure respite. Those urges in the smallest hours of the morning, to run to him, to tell him again that she loved him, to try to convince him to love her...she could ignore those. If she ignored them for long enough, surely they’d disappear. Surely she’d done the right thing?
But doubts niggled. Should she have fought harder for him?
Only then she remembered her past. Hadn’t she been humiliated enough? The man didn’t love her. No man had ever loved her. Not her father. Not her ex. Not Leon.
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