‘But it did.’
He followed her gaze, glancing down at where the skin across his abdomen had turned plum-coloured. ‘It’s just a bruise.’
Without apparently moving, she had drifted closer, and for a few agonising half-seconds he thought she was going to touch the bruise. But then her hands fisted at her sides.
‘Last night, you said it was just a scratch.’
‘Which only goes to prove what you already knew,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
Her brown eyes were glittering, but her mouth was soft and vulnerable, and everything inside him slid sideways—just as it had that first time at the Amersham, when she had made an entire polo match, complete with ponies, players, and spectators, disappear.
‘That I don’t always know what I’m talking about. That I get things wrong. And I was wrong, Delphi. About so much. I know that I confused you, and I hurt you, and for a long time—too long, in fact—I didn’t even see what I was doing. But I do now, and nothing is more important to me than you.’
Beside his bed, his phone buzzed once.
Watching Delphi’s face tense, he took a step closer, as if doing so might reinforce what he was about to say.
‘And if you’ll give me a second chance, I promise things will be different—I will be different. Let me prove to you that you can trust me.’
Now his phone started ringing. They both stared at it and he almost laughed—although nothing about the situation was funny. He wanted to break the tension between them, and the only other way he knew to do that was by kissing her. But if their marriage was going to work it, sex couldn’t be the only way they communicated. He had learned that much in the last few days.
Snatching up the phone, he switched it off and tossed it onto the bed.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Delphi said stiffly.
‘Yes, I did, and I should have done it a long time ago. But now I need to do more than just tell you that I can change. I need to show you. I need to show you that our marriage matters more to me than anything else. That you matter more than anyone else.’
All the time he was speaking she was still there, and that was all that mattered. Keeping her here. But he’d realised that he was telling the truth. For the first time in his whole life, nothing—not even his father’s approval—was as important to him as Delphi and their marriage. He wasn’t interested in who was calling him or what they wanted.
She was shaking her head, her eyes too bright. ‘Don’t do that. It’s not fair.’
‘I don’t care about fairness. I care about you.’
‘You hurt me.’
His heart contracted. ‘I know.’
‘And then I hurt you. I don’t want us to keep hurting each other.’
‘I don’t want that either. But if you leave now, do you think the pain will go away?’
‘No. But sometimes hope is more painful than loss.’
Her raw admission made his pulse quicken and, cupping her cheeks, he tipped her face up to his, refusing to let her look away. ‘But our hope survived the storm.’ He stared down at her. ‘You’re the beat of my heart...the air I breathe. And I know I’ve been selfish, and I’m still being selfish in asking you to stay. But I don’t have a choice. Because I—’
Because I love you.
He stared down at her, his heart pounding, the unfinished sentence booming inside his head, shocked. But why? He had never stopped loving her—even when he’d been furious and hating her for leaving him. But Delphi was so ready to run, and big words like love had always scared her. He couldn’t risk scaring her now.
‘I need you. Without you, nothing matters. I don’t matter.’
Panic had made him careless, and his throat tightened. It was his worst fear—one that he had never admitted to anyone—and the idea that he had just done so to Delphi made his stomach churn.
‘Of course you matter,’ she said hoarsely.
‘Then stay. At least for a few weeks.’ His thumbs caressed her face. ‘I still owe you a honeymoon, remember?’