Chapter Eighteen
Santiago
Her small, slender fingers barely wrap around my hand, and yet it feels as if mine is enclosed in hers.
Her skin is warm and her grip is firm. Her gaze as she looks at me is open, a deep midnight blue, and I want to throw myself into all that colour.
Let it cool the heat of my fury. Let her touch calm me the way it calmed me downstairs.
Yet all I feel is furious.
That moment when Beatrix laid her palms on my chest, and looked up and saw me…
Not the man I am, but the boy I used to be.
The boy who once loved his parents, and who didn’t understand why they didn’t love him back.
Why they never forgave him for one stupid thing he did, years and years ago.
Why for one parent he was the devil, and for the other a source of attention that was never enough.
There was so much sympathy and understanding in her face in that moment, and all I wanted was to grab hold of her and never let her go, so I would always have her looking at me that way, giving me that sympathy and understanding that I never knew I was desperate for until now.
But a moment was all I could allow myself.
She sees too deeply into me and I’m too hungry for that to let myself have it.
The lines have the potential to become blurred.
She’s supposed to be my lover and legally my wife, and that’s all, and I can’t have her giving me sympathy or reassurance.
I can’t have myself wanting to share things with her, wanting to give her parts of myself, because I can’t have this turning into something it’s not.
Something dangerous, something involving any kind of deeper emotions.
Something like love?
No. I can’t let this be love. There’s no surety in love, no safety. No certainty. Love is fickle and it can’t be trusted, and it’s never enough for some people, anyway. I don’t want anything to do with it.
I stare back at her, forcing aside my anger, finding my usual rational, logical manner. ‘I’m not angry,’ I say, so determinedly neutral I’m sure I’ve betrayed myself. ‘Let’s discuss this marriage, then.’
‘Now who’s lying?’ Her gaze is steady and sharp as a spear. ‘I thought the truth was important to you.’
Yes, she sees me. She sees me even now, and she’s making me feel like a hypocrite and a coward.
You’re both of those things and you know it.
I ignore the thought, shoving it hard away, along with the helpless fury that I don’t understand and don’t want to. ‘I’m not a liar, Beatrix,’ I tell her coldly.
She shifts, sitting cross-legged on the mattress, and looks back at me. Something’s going on in that lovely head of hers, because I can see the way her blue gaze shifts and changes. God, I want to know what it is.
‘I’m sorry, Santiago,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry for choosing Antonio.
I wanted you, though. I wanted you badly.
But I was afraid of the way I wanted you.
I had a plan for my future, and you weren’t part of that plan.
But then you appeared that night of the fundraiser, and there was a part of me that knew I’d throw everything away just for a night with you.
And I…couldn’t even bring myself to go near you. ’
Shock grabs me by the throat and it doesn’t let go, and she doesn’t stop.
‘I haven’t wanted to trust anyone for years,’ she goes on.
‘Because after that family didn’t want me, I couldn’t bear the thought of yet another rejection.
Antonio was safe because he didn’t require anything emotionally from me.
He only wanted to have a pretty, young wife on his arm, and in return he would give me a home.
’ She pauses a moment, her gaze direct, open.
‘I’ve never told anyone these things before. You’re the first one.’
I don’t know what to say to any of this.
I don’t even know why she told me. I’m a hard, difficult man, and I haven’t given her any reason to trust me, and yet here she is, telling me all these things as if I have a right to them.
She’s taking off her armour, showing me the vulnerable parts of herself, trusting me with them, and I don’t understand.
‘Why?’ I demand, my fury climbing, at her for being so stupid as to make herself vulnerable to me, and at myself for not knowing how to deal with it. ‘Why tell me all of this?’
‘Because you’re the father of my child,’ she says simply.
‘And we’re going to have to deal with each other in the future, regardless of whether or not we stay married.
’ She pauses and I can see that this is difficult for her, and that she doesn’t want to say this next bit, but she does.
‘And I’m lonely, Santiago. I want to let someone in.
I want to trust someone. I want to share my life with someone, and I would like that someone to be you. ’
There’s nothing but truth in her eyes, and my chest tightens.
I’ve had many lovers, women who don’t want anything more than a couple of nights of passion, and I’ve never felt inclined to want more than that, either.
I have few friends, most of whom are colleagues, other scientists in various parts of the world, and I only ever talk research with them.
I have no one I confide in or talk to about anything else, because I’m difficult, and I’ve accepted that about myself.
You want what she’s offering. You want it badly.
I want it, yes. But I can’t offer the same in return. I can’t and I won’t, and that’s just something she’ll have to accept.
‘I’m not an easy man,’ I say after a moment, trying to find the language I need to explain. ‘I’m difficult. I have a short fuse, I’m impatient, I’m arrogant. I prefer facts to feelings, and I prefer reality over any kind of fantasy.’
The tension around her mouth relaxes. ‘I mean, that isn’t news to me,’ she says drily. ‘Especially the arrogant part.’
‘Beatrix,’ I warn, because I can’t treat this conversation lightly. ‘Listen. You shouldn’t trust me, and I don’t know why you would. I haven’t given you any reason to.’
But she only gives me one of her beautiful, aching smiles. ‘Perhaps I don’t need a reason,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I just wanted to make a leap of faith.’
‘Beatrix—’
‘Santiago,’ she interrupts. ‘You feel very deeply about a great many things, I can see that. And I think you’ll feel very deeply about our child too. That’s what I want to put my trust in. That depth of feeling.’ She pauses. ‘Also, who said you were difficult?’
That at least is an easy question to answer. ‘It was made clear to me in no uncertain terms as I was growing up.’
‘So…what? You just accepted it?’
I let out a breath and give her some more truth. ‘I…tried to be different. Tried to be more…acceptable, shall we say? But nothing I did made any discernible difference. All I can be is myself, and if that’s not good enough, then that’s too bad, since it’s all I can be.’
She is silent a long moment, studying me. Then she says, ‘You don’t need to be different. You’re a complicated, fascinating man, and I like that a lot.’
Again there’s a shifting in my chest, a tightness. She sees me and my many, many flaws and she thinks they’re interesting. That I’m interesting. Yet as much as I want to believe her, I know the truth.
The evidence of caring that she’s trusting in so much isn’t there. Whatever care I once felt, it’s gone now. The anger is merely the remains, and once that’s burned away, nothing will be left.
Except this trust of hers is so fragile and delicate.
It’s a blown-glass rose she’s giving me, the way she gave that white rose to a stranger, and it has to be handled with care, not smashed needlessly.
I can’t throw it back in her face. She sees in me the ghost of someone long gone, but I like that she sees it.
It makes me feel as if I’m a better man than the man I’ve chosen to become.
A less rigid, less difficult, kinder man.
I could try to be that man for her. I can do it. I’ve been trying all my life to be that man after all, and for her I could try a little harder.
So, I ignore my anger and slowly reach across the space between us, taking her hand and turning it over to find her palm.
Then I bend and press a kiss there, like a promise.
‘So,’ I say, lifting my head and meeting her gaze, ‘in that case, I want you to live here with me, sleep with me in my bed. My house is your house, and I will provide for you financially. This is your home. This is the place where you belong. You’ll be my wife in every way. ’
Her expression softens and there’s a gleam in her eyes that looks like tears, though they’re gone before I can say for sure.
She smiles, though, and it’s so beautiful I want to lock it away and keep it all to myself.
‘I’d like that,’ she says, her voice husky.
‘I’d like that a lot. I’m even thinking that I’d also like to go back to school.
Perhaps even to university. I’d like to have a career of my own doing something that I love, and not just out of necessity. ’
I slide my fingers through hers, holding on to her hand. She’s so lovely sitting there with her golden hair flowing down over her shoulders. The top few buttons of my shirt are undone and I can see the shadowed place between her luscious breasts. I want to undo the buttons and press my mouth there.
But she placed her trust in me, and I want to honour that. Sex would be an easy way to give her what she wants, but if I’m going to try to be the man she wants, I need to make a different decision. I need to have the conversation.
‘A career?’ I ask. ‘What sort of things are you interested in?’
‘I…don’t really know.’ Colour tinges her cheeks as if she’s embarrassed.
‘I wasn’t very good at school. The foster home I was in at the time, the parents didn’t care whether I did my homework or not, or whether I worked hard.
So I didn’t care either. I was just marking time until I was old enough to leave school and get out of the foster system. ’
I’ve already thought she was strong and determined, and it’s being reinforced for me now as I sit here, listening to her tell me about where she came from.
And I find I don’t like that no one cared about her or what she did.
It feels like an insult. A travesty. She’s beautiful and passionate, and stubborn.
She’s interesting, a fascinating subject that I keep discovering new things about, and it’s wrong she has no one.
So right then and there, despite knowing that it’s dangerous to get any closer to her than I am already, I decide that she will have me.
I’m her husband. She’s the mother of my child, therefore she’s my responsibility, and, just as I would never walk away from my child, I won’t walk away from her either. Not now.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘you’re not in the foster system now, and I care. If you want to go back to school or university, then I’ll support you fully.’ I pause, holding her gaze, letting her know I’m genuine in this. ‘I want you to be happy, Bea.’
She tilts her head, looking at me. ‘You do?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘You deserve to be.’
Her colour deepens, her eyes shining as if I’ve given her a precious gift.
Careful.
It’s true, this is venturing onto shaky ground. Her putting her trust in me is one thing, but her wanting something from me emotionally that I won’t ever be able to give her is quite another. Because, while she is my responsibility, anything deeper will never be a part of this, not ever.
‘But you have to know,’ I go on, ‘that I can’t give you anything more than what I’m giving you now. Emotionally, I mean. Love, for example, can never be part of this marriage.’
For a moment something flickers in her eyes again, but it’s gone before I can tell what it is. ‘You’ll love our child, though,’ she says. ‘Won’t you?’
I can’t help myself then, looking down at her stomach, hidden by the cotton of the shirt she’s wearing, feeling that strong, powerful emotion tugging at me. An emotion I never wanted, yet I feel all the same.
‘Yes,’ I say, my voice a little rough. ‘I will love our child.’
She pulls her hand from mine then, only to grab it again and draw it to her stomach, holding it there, my palm pressed to the hard, round shape beneath cotton and skin. Her eyes are suddenly alight, a smile playing around her mouth. ‘I think he or she heard you,’ she murmurs. ‘Can you feel it?’
I do, a flutter against my palm. The kick of a tiny foot. And that powerful feeling gathers inside me in a roaring tide that threatens to undo me completely.
I might not love her, but this child I would die for.