Only she had a different destination in mind.
“Because I am.”
“Not good enough. You lied to me once, according to you…and you could do it again. And I wouldn’t find out until it was too late to rectify the problem with anything but a divorce. Mama is upset enough about the current scandal. That would unhinge her completely.”
“There will be no divorce,” he bit out. How could she even suggest a thing?
“That is my hope as well. But if there is not love between us at least we need to know we are a good match sexually. We can build on that.”
“You love me. You said so.” Okay, she’d stopped herself from saying it completely, but he knew that was what she’d meant.
She flinched, but then she shrugged. “My feelings, or lack thereof, are not up for discussion right now.”
“Phoebe, I have always loved you.”
She looked both sad and happy at that. “I know. As a very dear friend—probably the most dear friend in your life. But you still turned me away when I needed you most. You aren’t in love with me, but if you truly want me I think we can make a marriage work.”
The fact she believed he had abandoned her when she had needed him most was a shard of pain lodged deep inside him. “I was trying to protect you.”
“It didn’t work.”
“Of that I am aware. I knew I’d made a mistake after you had gone. You would not talk about it later, though.”
“There was nothing to discuss any longer. I was engaged to your brother.”
“Yes.”
“Regardless of why, you did not want to marry me. Now you do. For reasons I find personally hard to trust. I need other assurances.”
“You are saying if I make love to you, you will marry me?”
“I am saying that if we make love and it is good it will help me make a choice in your favor.”
“But surely you know…sometimes these things take more than one effort to establish.”
“You mean our sexual compatibility?”
“Yes.” What else had they been discussing these past ten minutes?
She cocked her head to one side. “Do you doubt your ability to please me?”
“Of course not.” He’d given her so much pleasure with a kiss that she had blacked out.
“Then it’s my ability to satisfy you that you doubt. To be honest, that has me worried too. Which is why I’m here.”
“That’s not what I meant, either.”
She looked at him like he’d lost some of his marbles in the last few minutes. Hell, maybe he had. “There are only two options.”
“I’m just saying it doesn’t always go smoothly the first time. I don’t want you turned off from sex and thinking you don’t want to get married because the loss of your virginity is painful.”
“So it is your performance that has you concerned?”
“No, damn it.”
“Prove it.”
“This is ridiculous,” he felt compelled to say, though his resistance to the idea had dwindled to almost nothing.