Читать книгу Modern Romance October 2019 Books 5-8 - Annie West - Страница 20

SHE WAITED AND WAITED and after a moment, she wondered if he wasn’t going to answer her. He simply stood there, naked as the day he was born, staring out to sea, and she moved towards him, coming around in front of him so she could look up into his stubborn face.

‘I don’t know much about sex,’ she said slowly, when he remained silent. ‘But I do know that I want to feel more of this.’ She gestured from him to her. ‘I do know this is amazing and hot and incredibly addictive.’

He ground his teeth together, the action making his jaw tight, his expression grim. ‘That night shouldn’t have happened.’

Hannah shook her head, rejecting both the words and the sentiment. ‘Neither of us planned that it would, just like we didn’t plan for this to happen, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong.’

He looked at her then, his expression impossible to interpret. ‘You are so young.’

He said it as though it were a criticism.

‘I’m twenty-three.’

‘Yes, but you’ve been very sheltered.’ He cupped her face then. ‘You deserve better than this.’

‘Than marriage to you?’

‘Better than a lifetime with me.’ His lips were grim. ‘I’m not the man you want me to be.’

‘And what do I want you to be?’

He expelled a soft breath then stepped back a little, just enough to put some distance between them. ‘A clean slate.’

The words were strange. Discordant. At first, she couldn’t make sense of them. But as he turned and pulled his shorts on, she saw the weight on his shoulders, the ghosts that chased him, and comprehension shifted through her.

‘You’re wrong.’ She dropped the words like little, tiny bombs. He didn’t turn around, but he froze completely still, so she knew he was listening. ‘I know you have a past, just like I do. But I’m not going to marry you if you’re telling me I’m going to be living with a brick wall. I’m not getting married if I think there’s no hope of having a living, breathing, red-blooded man as my husband.’

He turned around then, his expression bleak at first, and then filling with frustration. ‘And sex ticks that box for you?’

Hannah frowned. That hadn’t been what she’d meant, but at the same time she knew it was a start. What they shared, physically, was a true form of intimacy. She didn’t need to have loads of experience to recognise that. She could see it in his eyes when he held her. She could feel the uniqueness of what they shared. He was trying to fight it, and she knew why.

Intimacy like this must surely lead to more.

With Angus, she’d operated on the reverse assumption. She’d hoped their friendship would bridge the way to a satisfying physical relationship. And it might have, but it would never have been like this.

Nothing like it.

This kind of connection couldn’t be learned.

It was raw and organic, primal, between two people.

She glared at him, challenging him from the depths of her soul. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I’m not going to live here like a prisoner in a gilded cage, Leonidas.’ Her voice cracked as she firmed up on that resolution. ‘This island is stunning but it’s no place to live if you’re going to freeze me out.’

‘Does it look like I am freezing you out?’

‘But you want to,’ she insisted. ‘You want to fight this, not build on it.’

His features tensed, his lips just a gash in his face, and she knew she was right.

‘And I won’t stay here if that’s the case.’ She tilted her chin bravely, when outside this island was a world she wasn’t sure she trusted any more. The reality of his wife and son’s murder was still exploding inside her, and she didn’t doubt there could be a risk to her.

But there was risk here, too. Risk in living with a man who was determined to ice her out. What if he acted the same with their daughter? What if she were born and Leonidas made no effort to get to know her?

His eyes narrowed. ‘How? You forget my island is practically inaccessible to anyone but me…’

Hannah was breathless again, her pulse racing but for a wholly different reason. ‘Are you seriously threatening to kidnap me?’

Frustration zipped through his body. ‘No.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘Christós, Hannah. You can’t leave the island.’

‘Ever?’ she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest to still the frantic hammering of her heart.

‘Not on your own,’ he amended. ‘I was careless once before, I cannot risk it again. I won’t have more on my conscience.’

And her rapidly thumping heart softened, aching, breaking for Leonidas.

‘I’m so sorry you lost them,’ she said quietly. ‘But I’m not going to be a prisoner to your fears.’

‘They should be your fears, too.’

‘I want to keep our daughter safe.’ Her voice was level, careful. ‘Somewhere between me living out there on my own and the luxurious prison you’re proposing is a middle ground we need to find.’

His eyes held hers for several beats. ‘I cannot agree to that.’ The words were wrenched from him, gravelled and thick with emotion.

‘Why not?’ she demanded, her hands shifting to her hips.

‘You cannot imagine what it was like,’ he said, grimly. ‘To get that call, to see their bodies.’ He shook his head from side to side and stopped speaking, but his face was lined with grief.

Tears bit at the back of Hannah’s throat; sympathy rushed through her. ‘I can’t even imagine that, you’re right.’ She lifted a hand to his chest, running it over his muscled flesh.

‘I made a choice after they died. I planned to stay single for the rest of my life.’

Hannah’s stomach clenched.

‘I didn’t want this. I have done everything I could to avoid it.’ His words were heavy with despair. She felt it and wished she could take it away, but how? ‘I knew we shouldn’t have slept together. It was so selfish of me but I was careful, Hannah. I did everything I could to make sure this wouldn’t happen. I didn’t want this.’

She wasn’t sure when she’d let herself care enough about him that his words would hold such a latent power to wound, but they cut her deep.

‘You shouldn’t have to live in this—what did you call it? Gilded prison? Because of me.’

She couldn’t speak.

‘But you do.’ The words were grim. ‘Surely you can see that? I can’t risk anything happening to you, to her.’ He lifted a hand to Hannah’s stomach, curving it over the bump there. His eyes met Hannah’s with a burning intensity.

‘Let me protect you both. Please.’

‘I am,’ she said, quietly, stroking his chest, her eyes determined. ‘But this is my life we’re talking about.’

He gazed at her, his expression strangely uncertain. ‘I know that.’

‘I want to marry you.’ The words felt right, completely perfect. ‘I know it’s the sensible decision.’ And strength surged inside her. ‘When my mum and dad died, I lost everything. Our home, my community, my school, my friends. I went to live somewhere new and different and I was miserable,’ she said, frankly, so captivated by her past that she didn’t see the way his expression changed with the force of his concentration.

‘I don’t want our daughter to ever know that kind of uncertainty. You’re her dad, and by doing this together, she’ll have two people who can love her and look after her. And as she grows older, we’ll surround her with other people who’ll love her and know her, so that if anything ever happened to us and she were left alone, she would eventually be okay. Don’t you see that, Leonidas? I need her to be okay, just like you do, but, for me, one of the worst things we can do is isolate her. Keep her locked up from this world, so we’re the only people she ever really knows. She deserves to live a full and normal life.’

‘How come you were sent to live with your aunt and uncle?’

Hannah frowned. ‘There wasn’t anyone else.’

‘And you didn’t know them well?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’d only met them a few times. They weren’t close to my parents.’

He frowned, lifting his hands to her face and cupping her cheeks. He stared down at her, his eyes ravaging her face. ‘You were deeply unhappy there?’

Hannah didn’t want to think of her life in those terms; she hated feeling like a victim. And yet, what could she say? She’d been miserable. Only now that she was on the other side of the world and free from her aunt’s catty remarks did she realise what an oppressive weight they’d been on her shoulders.

‘I wasn’t happy.’ She softened the sentiment a little. ‘I’m not sure my aunt ever really liked me, let alone loved me.’

He scanned her face but said nothing.

‘I spent more than a decade living with people who cared for me out of a sense of obligation. People who resented my presence, who undoubtedly wished I wasn’t in their life. I won’t do it again.’ Her eyes showed determination. ‘We didn’t plan this, we didn’t intend for it to happen, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make this marriage work.’

Still, he was silent.

‘Less than six months ago, I was engaged to another man. I had my whole life planned out, and it looked nothing like this. I’m not an idiot, Leonidas. If I ever believed in fairy tales, I’ve learned my lesson many times over. This isn’t a perfect situation, but there’s enough here to work with. Our marriage can be more than a business arrangement, a deal for shared custody. We can make something of this—we just have to be brave enough to try.’

His jaw was square as he turned to the water, looking at it, his face giving little away. ‘I want you to be safe and, yes, I want you to be happy, Hannah. I want our daughter to have the best life she can. But beyond that, stop expecting things of me. You say you no longer believe in fairy tales? Then do not turn me into any kind of Prince Charming in your mind. We are a one-night stand we can’t escape, that’s all.’