Chapter Twelve
Santiago
The observation is sharp, a scalpel sliding into my flesh, and for a moment all I can do is sit there and stare at Beatrix. She’s looking at me as if she knows me, as if all the emotions I cut from my heart years ago are still there. Even that most pathetic of all feelings: love.
Perhaps once, I loved him. Perhaps once, I thought him the greatest man who ever lived, and I wanted to be just like him. And perhaps once, he loved me in return. But I also told the truth once, and he held it against me forever.
Since then any love I once had for him curdled like sour milk, turning into a thin and bitter liquid that left a bad taste in my mouth. A taste easily got rid of with a couple of glasses of good Scotch.
But I don’t want to talk about Antonio. She somehow led me into a conversation about him, asking questions that I had to give her the truth about. There’s no sugar-coating her late husband’s behaviour and I won’t do it.
Of more pressing concern is her insistence on becoming my wife.
Marriage, like children, hasn’t been on my radar, since it requires a level of emotional commitment that I’m not willing to give. It certainly only made my mother’s life miserable. Then there’s the fact that Beatrix is my father’s widow, and I want nothing that was his.
Still, that conscience of mine kept whispering that what she was saying was correct, that she shouldn’t be vilified for wanting some legal protection if she’s to live with me here.
You didn’t like the idea of her marrying someone else, either.
I shouldn’t have said that about her never marrying another man, not so insistently.
But the primitive man in me wouldn’t be quiet.
The thought of her choosing someone else again is not something I can bear, not before I’ve had my fill of her.
She has to remain mine if she’s going to be in my bed, there’s no other option for me, and if a marriage vow will keep her at my side until we’re done, then why not?
When we get tired of each other, we can separate, and what happens with our child we’ll discuss then, since I’m not wedded to the idea of a family in the traditional sense. My mother and I were better off alone in the long run anyway.
‘I don’t want to talk about my father,’ I say bluntly. ‘The issue of a marriage is more pressing.’
Her eyes widen. ‘Really? You seemed as if you didn’t want to talk about that either.’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I say. ‘The idea has some…merit.’
A flush of colour stains her cheekbones, and she takes another sip of her tea. ‘If it would make you more comfortable with the idea, we could draw up some kind of contract. I mean, if you want a prenup, I’ll sign it.’
A flicker of irritation goes through me. Does she think my discomfort with the idea of marriage is solely about money? That a prenup would make me feel ‘comfortable’?
‘This is not about my comfort,’ I say, a little too sharply. ‘A legal marriage will be for yours.’
She puts her cup down on the table, and leans back in her chair, regarding me. ‘Why not yours? Is your comfort not important?’
It’s an odd question, and one that sets me off balance, since I’ve never given much thought to my comfort or otherwise.
‘I’m perfectly comfortable already,’ I say curtly.
‘Are you?’ Her level gaze is strangely piercing. ‘Is that why you’re so angry all the time?’
Oh, she sees you. She sees you all too well.
My irritation turns into anger. I want to deny it, tell her she’s wrong, but…
That would be a lie, wouldn’t it? And aren’t you always honest with yourself?
Anger simmers sullenly in my gut, proving the truth.
I’m sitting here stiff as a board, because this woman has managed to get so completely under my skin that I can’t get her out.
She’s been under it since the moment I saw her at that fundraiser, and it galls me that it’s almost impossible for me to be my normal logical self when she’s around.
But I’m a man who likes facts and those are the facts.
I can’t be my normal logical self when she’s around.
I have no physical self-control when she comes near, and all my efforts to deny that have failed.
So now I’m forced to conclude that yes, I’ve been lying to myself about how much I want her, and that it’s useless to pretend otherwise.
Just as it’s useless to pretend that everything she does doesn’t either infuriate me or fascinate me, and usually both at the same time.
So once again, I give her the truth. ‘What I’m angry about is having no self-control around you, because self-control is something I value.’
A look of surprise crosses her face, and this time I let myself have the feeling of satisfaction that I’ve surprised her. That I’ve made her feel as off-balance as I do.
Yet more colour floods through her cheeks, making her look like a blooming rose.
Her lashes lower abruptly, and she picks up her teacup again, taking a sip.
If it weren’t for her blush and the way she’s avoiding my gaze, I’d think my words have no effect on her at all. But I know better. She liked that I told her that, didn’t she?
‘That…goes both ways,’ she murmurs into her teacup.
I like that. Her own need for me is something I already know, but hearing her admit it out loud is very satisfying.
‘Is that why you chose my father?’ I ask, surprising myself with the question and my own willingness to talk about it. Because now I’m giving it some rational thought, it’s the only logical explanation. She’s as uncomfortable as I am with our chemistry, and elected not to chase it.
Her lashes lift and her blue gaze meets mine, and I feel the impact like a blow to the stomach.
It’s like that first time in London, no anger, only fierce hunger, and this time my body tenses for a completely different reason entirely.
For the first time she’s letting me see this desire of hers, uncoloured by anything else, and it’s as if she’s giving me a gift.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You affected me so powerfully and I was…afraid of it.’
I search her face, but there’s only honesty there. ‘Why?’ I ask, curious now, though my hunger for her is rising again in equal measure, no matter that she knelt for me only an hour or so earlier.
‘I…haven’t felt that way about anyone before.’ She’s slightly hesitant, as if she can’t find the right words, which for some reason is extremely erotic to me. ‘It’s…overwhelming.’
As I study her, my curiosity shifts and discovers a new and intense focus: her.
Maybe I was…premature when I dismissed the idea of researching her as if she was a puzzle, deciding my desire was simple sexual attraction, nothing more.
But there’s merit to the thought of investigating her more thoroughly, and the scientist in me agrees. She’s…interesting.
After that fundraiser, where I first saw her, I found out what I could about her. Then, after she rejected me, I let my anger at both her and my father colour my thinking. I let my anger at myself and my own lack of control around her get to me.
But this conversation, more honest and without anger, is letting me see her clearly for the first time. Letting me see her as I first did, at the bar, where she seemed to me the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and I wanted her.
I want her now, powerfully, yet I also want to discover the facts about her, get to know her.
I shift in my seat and lean forward. This is the first time she’s shown me any vulnerability, confessed to feelings for me that aren’t hate or simple lust, and I want to hear more. I want to know why she was so overwhelmed by me and why she’d never felt that way about anyone else before.
Still, maybe that can wait. For now, I’d like to hear about why she made the decision to choose my father instead of me. ‘You didn’t feel that even for my father?’
One corner of her mouth lifts in a faint smile, and my breath catches.
I’ve seen her smile only once before, and that was when I approached her at the bar, and now I want it again.
I want her mouth to curve in just that way, just for me.
‘No, not at all for him,’ she says. ‘He was the…safer option.’
‘Safer how?’
She’s blushing again, as if my attention discomforts her yet pleases her, and I like that too. It’s odd to imagine wanting to please her, since I’ve spent so long wanting to anger her, but her pleasure could be a research topic that I’d definitely consider immersing myself in.
‘I…don’t trust people easily,’ she says, again sounding hesitant. ‘My instincts can be wrong about them.’
My curiosity deepens still further. ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Did something happen to you?’
She glances away again, down at the cup in her hands. ‘Oh, you don’t want to know about all of that. It’s really not very interesting.’
‘I’m interested,’ I tell her bluntly. ‘You’ll be my wife, in which case I’ll want to know all the facts that relate to you.’
Again, her gaze lifts to mine and again I feel the impact of it.
A punch of fascination and raw hunger. ‘Okay,’ she says.
‘You asked for it. I was given into foster care as a baby and placed in a lot of different homes. It was very…destabilising. When I was around thirteen, another girl and I were actually placed with wonderful foster parents.’ She pauses, shadows moving in her blue eyes.
‘I thought they liked us, and when we were told they were considering adopting us, I was so excited. But at the last minute the other girl was adopted and I wasn’t. I was never told why.’
There’s a strange tightness in my chest. As if I empathise with her.
I wasn’t ever in foster care but I’m familiar with the sense of destabilisation.
I felt that way myself, in my early childhood, with my parents and their acrimonious relationship that would at times spill over onto me.
My father furious with me for something I said or did that he didn’t agree with.
My mother shaking me off and pulling away when she didn’t want to deal with me.
The random element of it, the not understanding why they were so furious and dismissive, the not knowing what you had done that was wrong. It was all so precarious and fraught. Like living in a tent and being constantly afraid that a strong wind would come and blow it all down.
‘I see,’ I say. ‘That must have been extremely confusing and difficult for you.’
She stares at me as if, again, I’ve said something surprising. Perhaps she wasn’t expecting me to be sympathetic. ‘You understand?’ she asks, as if she’s not really sure.
‘Obviously, I didn’t have the same experience as you,’ I say.
‘But I know what it’s like to feel as if you’re walking on shaky ground.
For example, I don’t know why Antonio could never forgive me for telling my mother about his affairs.
He was angry, yes, but he stayed angry for so long, and I was only a child at the time.
Also, my mother’s mental health is not good, and that can be…
challenging. I never know what’s going to tip her over the edge, even now. ’
‘Oh, that sounds tough.’ There’s a crease between her brows, sympathy in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry you had to deal with that.’
Again, she’s completely genuine and the tightness in my chest gathers even tighter.
It’s not a feeling I enjoy. The things I had to do to look after my mother were necessary.
Someone had to do them for her and, since I was her son, the task fell to me.
It’s not something that anyone has to apologise for.
‘I managed,’ I say, a little impatiently, since I’m not interested in talking about me. ‘So, you have no family at all?’
‘No,’ she says and I catch a slight hint of a husk in her voice. This hurts her, doesn’t it? ‘Apparently my mother died having me, and my father gave me immediately into foster care, since he was too grief-stricken to care for me. I don’t know who they were beyond that, and I don’t want to.’
A sweeping anger grips me at this, but it’s a different sort of anger this time.
It’s not directed at her, but for her. Grief I understand intellectually, but everything in me rebels at the thought of a father who gives away his baby because he can’t deal with it.
My own father did that, though his reasons were different and I was older, yet it only makes me even more sure that I will never do that to my own child.
In fact, looking into her blue eyes now, I see that same certainty reflected back. She won’t either. On this, we agree totally.
Our gazes lock and hold, and something charges in the air between us, that familiar electric current. But this time there’s a deeper element to it, as if the honesty of our conversation has added an understanding we didn’t have before, and somehow this makes that current more intense.
Slowly, the blue in her eyes turns violet as the air around us constricts, sparking and crackling with heat.
‘I’m not going to give you up,’ I tell her abruptly, clearly. ‘I want you in my bed and I want you now.’