Dell blew out a breath. “People often wonder about things that don’t concern them.”
“They’re saying it’s because your wife has a business in Boston and you don’t want to upset her with a move.”
She looked so deliciously miffed that Dell almost wanted to laugh.
“Maybe I should remind them that I have a business headquartered in Boston and a fine old family home. Perhaps I simply don’t want to expand to the Midwest.”
She frowned, her nose wrinkling in that cute way it had. “Is that why?”
It wasn’t. He loved Chicago and he had been thinking of expanding there for a while, but it would have been unconscionable to desert his new and fragile bride in her hour of need while he left town for the long periods of time that would be necessary to embark on such a venture. The gossips were right, at least partly right. No matter the circumstances, O’Ryans took care of their families and they took care of the family name. Leaving a wife alone so soon after they had wed would have stirred up more gossip than breaking it off with Elise had.
“I’m just pointing out that there’s often more than one reason for doing or not doing something,” he said, evading the question. “And I don’t want you to worry about this. I’ll handle it.”
Regina stood suddenly and took a step toward him. “When I was ten and you were six, we didn’t know each other, but like everyone else in the area, I knew who you were. One day I was walking past this house and your father was explaining to you why an O’Ryan couldn’t run around barefoot in the summer the way the rest of us did. You had this longing look in your eyes and, not realizing that we lived in vastly different worlds, I felt sorry for you. I think I just saw a fleeting glimpse of that same look. The gossips are right. You’d like to pursue the Chicago connection, but you feel responsible for me. Well, no more. I don’t want to continue our marriage, Dell.”
Dell had been opening his mouth to dismiss her arguments, but that last sentence caught him by surprise. As if someone had unexpectedly punched him square in the chest with a jab that was sharp and surprisingly painful. He blinked. “Excuse me?”
Then her words caught up to him. “Why?” he asked.
A sad smile lifted her lips. Her brown eyes looked equally sad as she held out her hands, then let them fall to her sides. “We married for the wrong reasons, ones that seemed important at the time. Partly it was because you wanted to protect me. And I—” She shook her head. “I was scared and lost and it was too easy to say yes, to want to be protected. I appreciate all you’ve done for me, all you’ve given up. You can’t know how grateful I am. But I’m not lost anymore, and I’m not the type of woman who was made to be protected. Dell, we don’t have a thing in common.”
“We have a marriage in common.” He didn’t know why he was arguing. They were completely different kinds of people.
Regina laughed, a soft, pretty sound. “You know that’s not enough. You’re old money, good family, following the rules, doing what’s required, what’s right, while I’m a bit of a wild and fluffy mess and always have been.”
He opened his mouth. She put up her palm to stop him.
“You don’t need to defend me. I spent a lifetime trying to be what my parents expected and then finally realized that I was different. What’s more, I’m good at being different, and I like the fact that I’ve finally accepted my creativity and my tendency to be unpredictable, but I don’t fit into your world at all. I may be four years older than you, but you’ve always been the grown-up while I’ll always be…I don’t know. Me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“You’re right. There isn’t, but I’m not right for you, and—”
“I’m not right for you,” he said, completing her sentence.
Dismay crept into her expression. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not looking for romance. I don’t even want it anymore, so you’re not interfering with my love life.”
“I’m just interfering with your life?”
“No!” Her voice was a bit too vehement, Dell couldn’t help thinking, and he did smile then, even though he didn’t feel at all like smiling.
“Liar. Being an O’Ryan probably isn’t fun if you’re not used to it.”
She looked down at the magazine she still held. “People judge you, and I’m not helping your standing.”
“Regina, I’m not worried.” At least not about that. There had been good reasons why Regina hadn’t appeared at his side this year. But theirs had not been an ordinary marriage. It certainly hadn’t been what either of them would have chosen. And it hadn’t been rewarding.
A pained look came into her eyes. “Every day women come into the shop. They’re happy. They’re marrying because it’s what they want above all else, and that’s as it should be, but it’s not us. Admit it, Dell. This isn’t working out. We’re not a real couple. We don’t even touch.”
She muttered the last part, and Dell’s senses began to sizzle. “We could touch,” he told her, even though he had touched her only as a friend before their wedding night and never since. She had cried that night—long silent sobs she had tried to hold back. He had stopped. Since then he’d concentrated on just being a provider. He’d been willing to wait and be patient.
“No, we can’t,” Regina said softly. “It would be a lie. It wouldn’t work.”
He studied her. She’d obviously thought this through. “How do you know it wouldn’t work?” he asked.
She blinked, clearly startled.
“The marriage, I mean,” he continued. “Not the touching. How do you know the marriage wouldn’t work?”
Regina’s gaze met his. “It hasn’t,” she said softly, and he was pretty sure she was remembering the past months.
So was he, and what he was remembering was that Regina had been happy until she fell into his life and things had gone awry. He’d spent a lifetime learning to be a proper O’Ryan and protecting the O’Ryan reputation from any hint of scandal. But after he had married Regina and scandal had been averted, he had abdicated his responsibility as if his duty had been done. There had been no satisfaction in this marriage and yet…
“We haven’t really tried to make our marriage work, have we?” he asked. “You mentioned that Adele wondered why she hadn’t seen you around, but very few people have seen us together. Our marriage has been solely on paper, hasn’t it?”
“There were reasons for that. You were practically forced to marry me.”
Somehow Dell kept from reacting to that. “I chose to marry you, Regina.” But he knew deep down that he was lying, at least partially. There had been numerous reasons why he had married Regina, but guilt, duty, honor and the need to protect the family name—and her—had been supreme.
But had he really protected her? Had he done anything right where she was concerned?
Maybe. After she had delivered his mail that day, they had become distant friends of a sort. She was nothing like the women he saw socially, nothing like the women he bedded and nothing like the women he considered as the ones who might produce the next O’Ryan heir. But he had liked her. She had been warm and refreshing. They hadn’t known each other well, but they might have become friends if he hadn’t made a single wrong and hasty decision that had turned the world upside down and had, ultimately, led to them becoming man and wife.
And now here they were, on the verge of another hasty, reckless decision. But he had never been a reckless man. Reckless actions were usually the result of messy emotions and he had spent years learning the ways emotional slips could ruin lives. Haste and recklessness fostered failure, and he didn’t like failure.