‘Ray’ll be sorry that you’re going,’ she said desperately. ‘You know how much he enjoys your company.’ Please don’t go.
‘Ray understands how it is,’ he returned, shrugging, then carried the bag through to the living room and placed it by the couch.
But I don’t! Nina wailed in her heart. How could he make love to her the way he had last night and then calmly walk out today as if it had just been a casual one-night stand?
‘But we’ve barely had a chance to talk,’ she said as he laid his heavy coat over the back of a chair. ‘When are you coming back?’
‘I’m not.’ The blow was all the more vicious for being totally unexpected. ‘I’ve said all I have to say over the past week. It’s your move now. As Karl so succinctly put it before I hit him, I can’t force you to be someone you don’t want to be. I can’t make the decisions for both of us. You’re the one to decide what your next step will be. I’m going to give you the space to do that. And meantime, I have a home, a life, waiting for me.’
‘But…I’m your wife,’ she reminded him in despair, spreading her hands in helpless appeal for his understanding.
He captured her left hand and turned it over, studying the simple gold band that was back on her finger, rubbing it slowly with his thumb. ‘This isn’t magical, you know. A ring doesn’t make you a wife, Nina.’
‘I know that.’ Vows and a loving heart did. She pressed her other hand to her chest. ‘But I remember…I feel that I’m your wife. That was what you wanted, wasn’t it? What you came here for?’
His fingers tightened on hers, colour streaking along his lean cheekbones, his blue eyes flaring with hope. ‘Are you saying you’re ready to leave Puriri Bay with me…to come back home?’
Leave? Now? She hesitated. Too much had happened in too short a time. Unreasoning fear reared its ugly head. ‘I—I still have a few paintings to do for George, but if you stayed, we could talk…’ She saw the wall instantly go up behind his eyes and said wretchedly, ‘You can’t just leave like this, with nothing resolved—’
She broke off as his mouth twisted sardonically.
‘Why not? You did. At least you’re getting the courtesy of a goodbye.’
She gasped in pain at the slashing thrust.
‘I’m sorry!’ He was as swift to apologise as he had been to attack. It was his generosity of spirit that had helped turn the violent physical attraction that she had initially fought against feeling for him into something much richer, sweeter and far more enduring.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ryan said again, lifting her slender hand to his mouth, his lips warm as they pressed over her ring. ‘That was below the belt. Forgive me. It was frustration talking. I know that it was your amnesia that stopped your getting in touch with me. I accept that all the doubts and suspicions I had about you over the past nine months were wrong, that you wouldn’t knowingly have wanted to hurt me as you did.’
She cupped his cheek with her other hand. ‘And you were hurt, weren’t you?’ she ventured, probing the wound that still festered between them.
The desolation in his eyes tore at her bruised heart, but there was strength and determination in his tone. ‘I didn’t marry you because I had to, Nina, but because I wanted to. We were lovers in every sense of the word, both before and after the wedding. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted as my wife.’
Was he using the past tense? Nina looked desperately into his eyes. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she whispered. ‘You crash back into my life and then just when I’m coming to terms with it, you go away again. Is it to pay me back for what I did?’
‘No…God, no.’ He led her to the couch and sat her down, playing gravely with her fingers as he said, ‘But, Nina, at the time I married you, you were very vulnerable. It wasn’t that long since your grandmother had died. You thought you’d been fully prepared for her death because you had anticipated it for so long, but afterwards it hit you a lot harder than you expected. I’m seven years older than you and decades more experienced. I decided I wanted you and deliberately plotted to sweep you off your feet.’