“That whatever happens, we stick around and fight for us instead of hightailing it out of our marriage, just like—” He gritted to a stop, his nostrils flaring with the depth of his emotion.
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“Go on, say it,” she dared him. “Just like your mother did.”
His nod was curt. “She packed up and left like it was a vacation she’d grown tired of.”
“How old were you when she left?”
“What the hell does it matter? A day, six months, ten years—it shouldn’t make a difference once you’ve taken a vow. If you walk away at first sign of trouble, then you might as well just keep on walking.”
His words slammed into her like a fist to the gut.
In that moment, with blinding insight, she realized just what walking away had done to him. “You hate me for that, don’t you? Just as you hate her?”
“Are we really doing this? Analyzing my mommy issues?” Nick mocked, his hands raking back her hair so he could kiss her forehead.
She drew in an incredulous breath. “So you admit you have mommy issues?”
His gaze grew shuttered. “Perhaps.”
“You’re doing it again, shutting me out and going all alpha on me. We can’t resolve our problems if you we can’t even have a decent conversation.”
“We can have a conversation, baby. Just not about my mother.” His voice had grown soft but there was a deadly warning behind it that made her spine snap straight.
“Was it really that bad?”
“She’s my mother, and I therefore do not wish to disrespect her. So let’s leave it. Please.”
It was the please that did it. That, and the wealth of pain he was trying so very hard to mask. For whatever it was his mother had done to have the power to hurt him this deeply, it must have been huge.
Certainly, huge enough to make him vow never to have a child of his own.
“Has anyone pointed out what a sheer, pig-headed streak you have?” she said without malice.
He gave a deadly smile. “Not if they wanted to live to speak about it.”
“We won’t work if you don’t meet me halfway, Nick.” She heard her voice crack, fear for them, fear for the very real danger that lurked in the shadows, making her quake inside.
“You’re asking me to relinquish control. That’s too much for me. Halfway is asking too much.”
Heart in her throat, she clenched her fist harder, and realized she still held her rings. “Can we at least try?”
“First, tell me why you went back to Brighton. To the apartment you told me you’d given up after we were married but secretly kept.” The words were condemning, but she felt his heart beating and somehow, the solid sound reassured her.
“Because it was the only thing that kept me from feeling as if I’d been totally assimilated into being Mrs. Nikolaos Andreakos, an extension of you, rather than my own being.”
“You really felt like that?”
She nodded. “And more. You have no idea how it felt to be treated like I was invisible by your friends. Besides being paparazzi-bait every time I stepped out the front door, I had to watch women drape themselves all over you, sometimes right in front of me. I hated you for not doing anything to stop it.” She took a calming breath. “How would you have reacted if I’d decided to crawl into another guy’s lap and rub myself all over him right in front of you?” she asked baldly, rawness scraping her throat.
Everything stilled—the air in the room, the leaves fluttering outside moments ago, even the background whirring of the computer faded—as if the whole world had stopped with her words.
“His life, and yours, would not have been worth living.” Nick’s voice was cold, deadly. “I would tear any man from limb to limb who dares to touch you.”
She shivered, momentarily reminded of the carnage in Nawaka. “Trust me, I felt the exact same way! It was all I could do not to claw their eyes out. Your eyes. It all got too much to bear. And suddenly we were on a slippery slope to being over—”
His hand slashed impatiently through the air, his platinum wedding band flashing in the morning sun. “It was nowhere near over…is nowhere near over.”