“Why now? I don’t get it. After all the times you might have said it, might have come clean about it, why now?” And then she blinked. He watched comprehension dawn in her eyes. “That stupid article. The pictures. You and Trevor, so much alike. It even mentions that I ‘claim’ to have used a sperm donor. You’re afraid someone might do more digging, and reach the truth. You couldn’t afford to keep me in the dark any longer.”
What could he give her but shamefaced confirmation?
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Oh, Rule. I thought it was bad, when you had to rush back here to Montedoro to explain yourself to Lili the morning after our wedding. I was … disappointed in you then. But I told myself that you had never lied to me. That you were a truly honest man, that you didn’t have a lying bone in your body …” Though her eyes were dry, a sob escaped her. She covered her mouth again for a moment, hard, with her palm that time, as though she could stuff that sob back inside. When she had control of herself, she lowered her hand and said, “What a fool I was. How could I have been such a fool? All the signs were there. I saw them, knew them. And still you convinced me not to believe the evidence of my own eyes.”
“I wanted to tell you,” he heard himself say, and then cursed the words for their weakness.
Her sweet, wide mouth curved in a sneer. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
He said it right out. “At the first? Because I knew I wouldn’t have a chance with you if I did.”
“You couldn’t know that.”
“Of course I knew. After your wonderful grandmother who taught you that honesty was everything. After those bastards, Ryan and Peter …”
She waved her hand that time, dismissing his excuses.
“If not at the
beginning, why not that night I asked you directly if you’d ever been a donor?”
“We’ve been so happy. I didn’t want to lose that, our happiness. I didn’t want to lose you.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Her voice was furious and hopeful, both at the same time.
He longed to reassure her. To give her more lies. But he couldn’t. Some … line had been crossed. All that was left to him now was the brutal truth. “I don’t think so. I kept telling myself I would, but there was always an excuse, to wait a little longer, to put it off. I kept choosing the excuses over telling you what you had a right to know.”
“So, then.” The hope was gone. Only her cool fury remained. “You were never going to tell me.”
He refused to look away. “No. I wasn’t willing to risk losing you.”
“And how’s that worked out for you, Rule?” Her sarcasm cut a ragged hole in his heart.
He answered without inflection. “As of now, I would have to say not very well.”
She sat very still. She … watched him. For the longest, most terrible stretch of time. And then she said, “I don’t get it. It makes no sense to me, that you would become a donor. Why did you? It’s … not like you. Not like you at all.”
“Does it matter now?”
“It matters to me. I am trying very hard to understand.”
“Sydney, I—”
“Tell me.” It was a command.
He obeyed. “My reasons were … They seemed real to me, seemed valid, at the time.” How could he make her see when he still didn’t completely understand it himself? He gave it his best shot. “I wanted … something. I wanted my life to be more than the sum of its parts. I wanted what my parents have together. What Max and Sophia had. It seemed I went through the motions of living but it wasn’t a rich life. Not a full life. I enjoyed my work, but when I came home I wanted someone to come home to.” He shook his head. “It makes no sense, does it?”
She was implacable. “Go on.”
He tried again. “There were women. They were … strangers to me. I enjoyed having sex with them, but I didn’t want them beyond the brief moments of pleasure they gave me in bed. I looked into their eyes and I didn’t feel I would ever truly know them. Or they, me. I was alone. I had business, in Dallas. I spent over a year there.”
“When?”
“Starting a little more than four years ago. I would go down to San Antonio on occasion, to visit with my family there. But it was empty, my life. I had only casual friends at that time. Looking back, I can’t remember a single connection I made that mattered to me other than in terms of my business. Except for one man. He turned up at a party I went to. We’d been at Princeton together. We … touched base. Talked about old times. He’d been a donor. He’d come from an American public school, was at Princeton on full scholarship. He became a donor partly for the money—which, he told me, laughing, wasn’t really much at all. But also because he said it did his heart good. It felt right, he said. To help a couple who had everything but the child they wanted most. That struck a chord with me. It seemed that being a donor would be … something good, that I could do, something I could give—but you’re right. It wasn’t like me. I’m a Bravo-Calabretti all the way to the core. I just refused to see that until it was too late and my profile was available to clients. Until two women had chosen me as their donor.”
Those lightless eyes widened. “Two women?”