“No way, Ajax.” She shook her head. “No way. You are not doing this. I am your wife. I am the only woman you have ever been naked with, and I don’t mean your body. Yes, there were women before me, but they didn’t have your soul. I see you, and I think that’s the thing that scares you the most.”
“It should scare you.”
“Yeah, it scares me a little. Not because I think you would ever do anything to hurt me. It scares me because I want you to love me, Ajax. I want you to open yourself up and take a chance. I want you to stop protecting yourself. Do you know how much it took for me to do it? To stand here and tell you that I love you? I want to mean enough to you that you would do the same for me.”
“I don’t love you,” he said.
“No.” Her throat started to tighten, her fingers going numb, tears stinging her eyes. “Don’t...don’t say that.”
“You want me to lie to make you feel better?”
“I want you to tell the truth.” Because this couldn’t be it. How could he stand there and tell her he didn’t love her after what had happened in the bedroom just a few moments before? A moment that had been so perfect? So incredible?
It had been love. It had to be love. Because it was for her. Truly. Deeply.
“I don’t love you,” he bit out, every word final, painful.
“Okay.” She nodded and tried to swallow, blinking back tears. “Okay.” It came out choked, weak. Utterly revealing. She felt like a little vulnerable sea creature that had been dragged out of its shell. So exposed. So naked and fragile.
She wanted to push at him. Shout at him. Do anything she could to cover up the pain.
But she wouldn’t hide. She wouldn’t. Not now. He deserved to see it, to see what life was like when you came out from behind the walls.
A tear slid down her cheek, and she sank down onto the couch, covering her mouth with her hand. Another tear followed the first. Then another.
“Leah?”
A sob shook her frame, and she put her other hand up, covering the first, as if it might keep her from flying apart completely. She was unprotected, for the first time in years. Hideously vulnerable. Coming apart.
“Leah,” he said again.
She just shook her head.
“I refuse to be manipulated,” he said, his voice low, harsh. “If you think tears are going to change my mind...”
She dropped her hands, wiped her arm over her cheek. “I have more pride than that!”
“Clearly you don’t.”
“Am I making you uncomfortable? If you were a real boy, you would know that this is normal. You see, Ajax, this is what people do when their hearts are broken. This is how people feel when they have their love thrown back at them!” Her voice broke, her words sounding hysterical. And she didn’t care. “I’m so sorry this bothers you, because it’s a picnic for me.”
“Maybe that’s why I don’t understand. Maybe that’s why I don’t care. I don’t have a heart.” He walked past her back into the bedroom, and she just sat on the couch, staring ahead at nothing. He returned a moment later dressed in a T-shirt and jeans.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “Because I have a feeling you’re too stubborn to do it.”
“Shall I expect something from your lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“The business?”
“The least of my concerns at the moment.”
That was more resounding than a slap in the face. That he would walk away from everything, from the reason they had been forced to marry in the first place, now, to get away from her.
“And if I’m pregnant? Because we haven’t used a single condom.”
“We’ll figure out custody. I’m not going to leave you helpless.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, took a deep, fortifying breath. “You couldn’t. I have a successful business. I have millions of dollars. I’ve never been helpless. The simple truth is that I’ve never needed you. I just wanted you. I just love you. But I want you a lot less right now, so maybe you should just go.”
He nodded, a muscle twitching in his jaw, like there were words built up, stopped in his throat. Words he wouldn’t let out.
Then he turned and walked out of the room. The slam of the door the final word on the end of the marriage.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT HAD BEEN the only thing to do. Ajax was sure of that. He’d had no other choice.