Chapter Twelve #2
‘Come, sit down,’ he said, guiding her through the apartment to the living room, which was considerably less sterile now she’d been let loose on it.
Without asking his permission, she’d worked with Melina to bring some favourite items here from the mansion—a chair Rosie had always loved to read in, a clock that had sat in Aristotle’s father’s study, and some of the brighter, more modern paintings that were the perfect foil to his rigidly austere aesthetic.
He guided her not to the armchair, but rather to the dining table and she watched as he disappeared from the room. A few minutes later, he returned with a very large rectangular package.
‘What is it?’ she asked as he placed the gift down carefully on the table.
‘Open it. Find out. But be careful—it’s old.’
Her fingers were trembling slightly as she moved to unfasten the tape, and open the paper. She peeled the corners back slowly and then pushed the paper back completely to reveal the cover of a book.
The Odyssey.
It was incredibly old, bound in the finest leather, but she knew instantly what it was.
‘Aristotle…’ She could hardly speak. She didn’t dare touch it without gloves. ‘This is an original Chapman edition, isn’t it?’
His eyes met hers, something in their depths like pride, or even affection, perhaps? ‘Yes.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘This is…incredible. Rare and…so generous.’ And thoughtful. So incredibly thoughtful. Because he knew what the story meant to her. And yet, to gift her a book that was four hundred years old…
‘It seemed appropriate,’ he said, making her wonder if he understood the story, and knew the enduring theme was of lovers separated, being loyal to one another and fighting to be reunited. A story of great love and faithfulness, an epic for the ages.
‘I love it,’ she whispered, staring at it and wondering how quickly she could arrange appropriate storage. Something this old and valuable needed to be under preservation glass as much as possible.
‘I have it arranged,’ he said, so she glanced up at him sharply. ‘The glass. I wanted you to be able to see and feel it first.’
She closed her eyes on a wave of emotion. It was the most touching thing anyone had ever done for her. She pushed her chair back from the table, standing on a tangle of feeling, as tears filled her eyes and she knew she needed some distance between splashes of salty water and the book.
‘Thank you,’ she choked out again. When she blinked at Aristotle, it was to find him watching her, in a way that made her whole body explode with certainty. ‘I have to tell you something.’
Don’t do it. Don’t do it.
‘Something you might not want to hear.’
It’s going to change everything, and things are so good right now.
‘But I think it’s important for you to know, before we get married.’
He’s going to freak out.
‘The thing is, I’ve learned so much over the last month. About myself, but also about you.’
This is going to backfire.
But he was waiting patiently, eyes on her, clearly with no idea of the bomb she was about to throw into this perfectly calm life they’d established.
‘You feel let down by the people who were supposed to love you.’
He stiffened visibly. She rushed on.
‘Your parents—both biological and adoptive. One set for giving you up, the other for lying to you about your birth. You have felt rejected and misled for as long as you’ve known about it, and it’s completely changed how you approach life.
Even though your adoptive parents clearly loved you with all their hearts, you stopped letting yourself love them a long time ago. ’
‘They are my parents,’ he interrupted darkly. ‘Of course I care about them.’
‘You can’t even say it.’
He scowled at her.
‘It’s like you stopped letting love of any kind in a long time ago.’
His nostrils flared. ‘Why is this relevant?’
‘Because you can’t stop people from loving you. Your mother loves you; our baby is going to love you. Are you seriously going to refuse to admit you love them too?’
‘Our child will know how valued they are, from the day they are born.’
‘Do you think that’s enough?’
‘We’re getting married tomorrow. Isn’t it a little late to question me on this now?’
‘It’s not too late until the ink has dried on our marriage certificate,’ she said, aware that this conversation was going in completely the wrong direction.
‘What the hell are you saying, Rosemary? Are you having second thoughts?’
She opened her mouth to dispute that, but suddenly, she couldn’t fight it any more. The sense of doom. The worry that if she married him, she’d be trapped. Trapped with a man who would torture her unknowingly, by failing to return her feelings.
‘You know, four years ago, when we slept together, I made a mistake. I jumped to the wrong conclusion when I heard the awful things your friends were saying. Instead of giving you a chance to explain, and avoiding years of thinking I hated you, I could have just told you what I’d heard, and let you explain. But I didn’t.’
He angled his jaw, regarding her without speaking. She knew it was the kind of look that would turn business rivals into jelly bones, because it was an innately disconcerting and intimidating expression, but Rosie was not so easily unsettled.
‘I’m not going to make that mistake again.’
‘What exactly are you trying to say?’
‘That I love you.’ She rushed the words out and without waiting for his reaction continued, ‘And I don’t want to marry you hiding that, presuming you’ll never be able to love me back, when maybe, just maybe, knowing how I feel about you might let you accept that you are, in fact, worthy of love.
Maybe you’ll actually let me love you, and eventually—’
‘No,’ he interrupted before she could utter the secrets from deep within her heart. ‘Don’t keep saying this.’
It was a groan, as drawn from his heart as her last statement had been from hers.
‘You are pregnant. That’s a powerful biological impetus.
It’s natural that you would start to believe you feel something for the father of your baby, particularly given our living situation, and the fact we’ve been sharing a bed for weeks.
It was careless and stupid of me to allow that to happen.
We should never have confused sex with what we are. ’
‘But sex is a part of what we are—and it’s so much more than that. It’s making love, Aristotle. Surely you can see that? The connection we feel is so much more than physical.’
He swore sharply in his own tongue, the harshness of the word ricocheting around the room.
‘Stop this,’ he pleaded, stalking towards her and standing toe to toe, anguish in his face. ‘You need to let this go.’
She bit down on her lip, to stop herself from sobbing. She’d told him because she wanted to learn the truth—and now she had it.
‘Okay,’ she said unevenly, taking a step backwards and feeling as if the whole world had shattered beyond recognition. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘What I want is to rewind ten minutes, and have this conversation not take place. Rosemary, what we share is good. It works. It is everything I want. But if you feel differently, if marrying me is going to make it hard for you, then we cannot go through with it.’
Her heart went into freefall as she stared across at him. ‘I will not fight you for custody of our baby,’ she said.
His eyes swept shut as his skin paled. ‘I should never have threatened you with that. I was desperate. Panicked. I just needed to secure this future for our child. I have no intention of taking you to court, Rosemary, because I know, no matter what happens between us and how you feel about me, that you will be reasonable and fair.’
He was right. She’d never stop him from seeing their baby.
‘I am staying at a hotel tonight,’ he said, his voice coming to her as if from a long way away.
‘I had planned to do so all along. Tradition, and all that,’ he said, dragging a hand through his hair.
‘You should use the night to think. Work out if you can do this. If you can’t, we’ll come up with a new plan tomorrow. ’
‘Another contract?’
‘If necessary.’
She closed her eyes on a wave of pain. ‘Okay. I’ll think.’
But thinking when one’s heart was splintering into a million pieces was no mean feat.