“I wasn’t taking it that lightly,” he said, voice so tight she tensed. “But I didn’t know how much it meant to you.”
Any other time in his life he would have swiftly put an end to such a deeply personal conversation, but right now, unpleasant as it was, he had to allow Adara to see she wasn’t the only one hurt by this. She wasn’t the only one with misconceptions.
“I never knew my father, so that gave me certain reservations about what kind of parent I’d make. You’re not anything like my mother, which is a very good thing in most ways, but she did have a strong maternal instinct. I never saw you take an interest in other people’s children. Your family isn’t the warmest. Frankly, I expected you to schedule a C-section, hire a nanny and mark that task ‘done.’”
He’d seen this look on Adara’s face before, after a particularly offside, cutting remark from her father. Her lashes swept down, her brow tensed and her nostrils pinched ever so slightly with a slow, indrawn breath. He’d always assumed she was gathering her patience, but today he saw it differently. She was absorbing a blow.
One that he had delivered. His heart clutched in his chest. Don’t put me in the same category as that man.
“I’m just telling you how it looked, Adara.” His voice was gruff enough to make her flinch.
“Like you’re some kind of open book, letting me see your thoughts and feelings?” She pushed her plate away with hands that trembled. “I’ve told you more about myself today than I’ve ever shared with anyone and all I’ve heard back is that you’re sad I miscarried. Well, I should damn well hope so! They were your babies too.”
She rose and tried to escape, but he was faster, his haste sending his chair tumbling with a clatter, his hands too rough on her when he pulled her to stand in front of him, but her challenge made him slip the leash on his control.
“What do you want me to say? That I hadn’t believed in God for years, but when I took you to the hospital that first time, I gave praying a shot and felt completely betrayed when He took that baby anyway? That I got drunk so I wouldn’t cry? Every time. Damn it, I haven’t been able to close my eyes since the beach without imagining walking into your bathroom and finding you dead in a pool of blood.” He gave her a little shake. “Is that the kind of sharing you need to hear?”
Her shattered gaze was more than he could bear, the searching light in them pouring over his very soul, picking out every flaw and secret he hid from the rest of the world. It was painful in the extreme and even though he would never want to inflict more suffering on her, he was relieved when she crumpled with anguish and buried her face in her hands.
He pulled her into his chest, the feel of her fragile curves a pleasure-pain sting. She stiffened as he pinned her to him, but he only dug his fingers into her loose hair, massaging her scalp and pressing his lips to her crown, forcing the embrace because he needed it as much as she did.
“It’s okay, I’m not going to mess it up this time.” His body was reacting to her scent and softness, always did, but he ignored it and hoped she would too. “I’m sorry we keep losing babies, Adara. I’m sorry I didn’t let you see it affects me.”
“I can’t try anymore, Gideon.” Her voice was small and thick with finality, buried in his chest.
“I know.” He rubbed his chin on the silk of her hair, distantly aware how odd this was to hold her like this, not as a prelude to sex, not because they were dancing, but to reassure her. “I don’t expect you to try. That’s what I’m saying. We don’t have to divorce over this. We can stay married.”
She lifted her face, her expression devastated beyond tears, and murmured a baffled “I don’t even know why you want to.”
Under her searching gaze, his inner defenses instinctively locked into place. Practicalities and hard facts leaped to his lips, covering up deeper, less understood motivations. “We’re five years into merging our fortunes,” he pointed out.
Adara dropped her chin and gathered herself, pressing for freedom.
His answer hadn’t been good enough.
His muscles flexed, reluctant to let her go, but he had to. Feelings, he thought, and scowled with displeasure. What was she looking for? A declaration of love? That had never been part of their bargain and it wasn’t a step he was willing to take. Losing babies he hadn’t known was bad enough. Caring deeply for Adara would make him too vulnerable.
He reached to right his chair, nodding at her seat when she only watched him. “Sit down, let’s keep talking about this.”
“What’s the point?” she asked despairingly.
The coward in him wanted to agree and let this madness blow away like dead ashes from a fire. If he were a gentleman, he supposed he’d spare her this torturous raking of nearly extinguished coals. Something deeply internal and indefinable pushed him to forge ahead despite how unpleasant it was. Somehow, giving up looked bleaker than this.
“You don’t salvage an agreement by walking away. You stay in the same room and hammer it out,” he managed to say.
“What is there to salvage?” Adara charged with a pained throb in her voice. Her heart was lodged behind her collarbone like a sharp rock. Didn’t he understand? Everything she’d br
ought to the table was gone.
Gideon only nodded at her chair, his expression shuttered yet insistent.
Adara dropped into her chair out of emotional exhaustion. For a few seconds she just sat there with her hands steepled before her face, eyes closed, drowning in despair.
“What do you want, Adara?”
She opened her eyes to find him statue hard across from her, expression unreceptive despite his demand she confide.
He was afraid it was something he couldn’t give, she realized. Like love?