Chapter Twenty
Santiago
I turn from the whiteboard and pick up the eraser, angrily removing all trace of the equations on it. Again. I’ve done this so many times already in the past few days, and I’m tired of it. But my brain can’t seem to make the connections I need it to, and I don’t know why.
Tossing the eraser negligently down on the couch I’ve been sleeping on, I walk over to the windows and gaze out of them.
No, I know why I can’t work. I’m too furious, both at Beatrix and at myself.
After she walked out of the guest bedroom, I tore up the plan I’d made for the nursery in a fit of rage and scattered the pieces on the floor.
Then I left the house, because I couldn’t stay in it, not with Beatrix being in such close proximity.
She was too much of a temptation, and I’m too weak when it comes to her.
I had to put some distance between us, because I couldn’t bear to hurt yet another woman, no matter that she said that her feelings weren’t my responsibility.
I intended to stay at the office for as long as it took me to formulate some kind of idea about what to do next, yet I’ve been here for a few days now and I’ve yet to decide on anything.
One thing is becoming certain though: I have to go back to the house to pick up some papers and a research report that I left in the bedroom.
I’ve got plenty of staff to do that for me, of course, but the report is confidential, and I don’t trust anyone to get it without looking at it.
Scientists are very jealous of their secrets, and I’ve had it happen a few times before where my research has been leaked to a competitor.
I turn from the view of Paris and call for a car.
It’s unfortunate to be returning to the house with Beatrix still there, but it can’t be helped.
I need the report, and with any luck she’ll be out, so I won’t run into her.
Not for my sake, naturally—I’m mostly fine—but for hers.
I don’t want to cause her any unnecessary pain.
All the pain you caused her was unnecessary.
I ignore the thought, busying myself until the car comes. The trip home is spent on the phone, and when I get there I let myself in and go swiftly up the stairs to the bedroom.
Yet as I pass by the guest bedroom door, something tugs at me. A pain that’s been there since I left, one I can’t ignore, and so before I can stop myself I open the door and step into the room.
The first thing I see are the pieces of my plan scattered on the floor, and the sight of them makes the memory of her turning around and walking out return with painful clarity. Which then makes me furious all over again.
How could she do this to me? How could she fall in love with me when I specifically told her that love would never be a part of our marriage? And then to have the gall to tell me as if it was something good…something I wanted to hear.
I find myself pacing down one end of the room, before turning around and pacing back.
What did she expect me to do by telling me that? She knew what I would say. She knew that I had only the truth to give her, and so here I am again, hurting someone with the truth, the way I always hurt people with the truth. The way I always hurt people, full stop.
She said she wanted nothing from me, but I know she does. I could see the pain in her eyes when I told her that there was no way I could love her back, that I wouldn’t.
If you don’t care about her, then why are you so angry?
I reach the other end of the room, and turn around again, pacing back the other way.
I’m angry because I was enjoying our time together.
I was enjoying helping her decide on her course of study, and holding her in my arms every night.
Enjoying sitting at the dining table just talking, and knowing that she’d be here when I got home from a long night in the lab, and seeing her smile and knowing it was for me.
I liked it, and I didn’t want it to end. But she spoiled everything, she broke everything.
She didn’t break anything. She told you the truth, and you didn’t like it.
Of course I didn’t like it. We couldn’t continue if she was in love with me. I’d only end up causing her pain, and I’m tired of causing people pain. The only solution is to cut love out, since love is the issue. It’s a research problem with the simplest answer.
Except you can’t do that with your child.
That’s the one exception. I can’t not love them or cut it out of any relationship I have with them. Biology prevents it, and that’s something I’ve accepted. Just as I’ve accepted that loving my parents is part of biology…it’s not something that can be helped.
But biology has nothing to do with my relationship to Beatrix, and so I chose to make love no part of it.
Except I can’t stop seeing the tears in her eyes as she told me she loved me.
Or the way her chin lifted as she told me that her feelings weren’t my responsibility, that they were hers.
The determination that filled her when she said it was fine if I didn’t love her, that she didn’t need me to love her back…
She should have someone to love her back, though. She deserves it. She should have the family she always wanted, with a husband who loves her the way she should be loved.
My heart beats faster as I reach the wall and then turn yet again, pacing another length of the room.
Because the truth is I can’t stand the idea of her finding another man, another husband.
Of that glow in her eyes when she looks at me being there for someone else.
Giving her smiles and her passion to someone else.
Her fire and spark and wit to someone else. Her bravery to someone else…
This is an impossible problem and it has no solution.
Either I keep her with me, and hurt her terribly, or set her free to find someone else, and suffer the jealousy that will tear me apart.
There is another answer.
I stop dead in the middle of the room, my breathing coming faster and faster. There is another answer, another solution, and even though it’s not something I ever wanted, I can’t help thinking about it all the same.
I could love her back.
But love is painful and uncertain, and it can’t be trusted. Love doesn’t make anyone happy and it’s never enough in the end. Certainly, it was never enough for either of my parents, yet…
She loves me. After everything I’ve done to her…reviled her, got her pregnant, dragged her here to Paris even though she didn’t want to come, married her… After all of that…
I wanted you to know that you have someone who loves you. Someone who doesn’t expect anything from you except to be the person you are…
Something takes hold of me, squeezing my ribs so tight I can barely breathe. I never knew what more I could do to get my father to forgive me, and I never knew what more I could do for my mother to make her happy. Who would want someone like that? Who could love someone like that?
Apparently Beatrix does. She loves the man I am, despite my very real and extensive flaws. I’ve never hidden them from her, not ever. She knows full well the extent of my arrogance and my pride, and my jealousy.
And she loves you anyway.
I look down at the floor, at the remains of my plan scattered there. A plan I spent hours over and loved every second of it, and ripped apart in a moment of rage. While she…calmly told me to let her know if I’d be around for dinner.
She should leave me, go and find someone else who isn’t this jealous or difficult, someone easier than I am…
You don’t want her to do that though.
My hands curl into fists at my sides. No, I don’t want her to do that.
I want her to stay. I want all her smiles and her laughter.
I want her passion at night and the way she screams my name.
I want her cool blue gaze to douse the fires of my anger.
I want her to curl up in my arms with our child.
I want her to tell me again and again that I’m enough.
I want her.
Then stop being such a fucking coward and choose her.
I stand there as it breaks over me in an icy wave of realisation. I’m afraid. I’m fucking afraid. I’m afraid of opening myself up. I’m afraid of not being enough for her, of my love not being enough. And knowing that makes this impossible problem an easy one to solve.
I could stop being afraid, and love this beautiful, passionate, special woman the way she deserves to be loved.
I could give her what she’s wanted this whole time, and I have the power.
I have the power to give her everything she’s always wanted, but only if I don’t put my fear first. Only if I don’t put myself first.
For a long moment I stand there, staring at the pieces of paper on the floor.
I never wanted to be selfish like my parents, but I understand now that if I continue on this path I’ll turn into a carbon copy of them.
I can’t do that, not with a child coming into this world.
A child that deserves a better upbringing than I ever had.
A child who deserves a better father than I had.
And whose mother deserves more than a man who decides that loving her isn’t as important as his own fear of being hurt.
I crouch on the floor, and slowly gather up the pieces of the plan I ripped up, then once I have them all I leave the guest bedroom and go downstairs to my study at the back of the house, my research report forgotten.
Once I’m there I lay all the pieces of paper on my large oak desk and study them, my heart painful in my chest.
This room is what I wanted for my child, and it always included the mother of my child. I was thinking about her, and what she’d like, with every line I drew, and now she and what she’d like are stuck in my head.
There’s a reason you can’t stop thinking about her, why you were so angry with her for so long, why you were so afraid when she told you that she loved you.
I know. I can feel it inside me, the one truth I could never face, never even acknowledge.
The truth that I was afraid of even looking at.
The truth that I love her. That I’ve been in love with her all this time, from the moment I saw her.
I told myself it was physical, just sex, merely chemicals and pheromones, nothing more, but it wasn’t and never has been.
It’s always been something deeper, something more. Something genuine. Something real.
I thought that I could keep my emotions separate from my rational thinking, that they were flaws. But they’re not. They’re part of my biology as much as my rational mind is, and I’m starting to realise something else, too.
Reality is made up of facts and love is one of those facts.
Love is one of the fundamental truths of the universe, and, while it hurts, there’s another side of it.
Beatrix has shown me what that side is. Happiness.
Joy. Laughter. Companionship. Acceptance.
All the things I’ve never had from anyone else.
All the things that I know now I can only get from her.
The urge to find her is strong, but I need to do something first.
I sit at my desk, and slowly and carefully I piece my plan back together again.