you,” Jaya said to him. “But you can’t keep offering to fly me and my family around the world.”
“Why not?”
Because I haven’t agreed to marry you, she almost said, but she suspected it didn’t matter. He’d do it regardless. “You’re a soft touch when it comes to kids, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what that means, but having Nic disappear on us was a trauma I don’t want to drop on my own son.”
Oh, right. She swallowed, watching him run a fingertip along his eyebrow. She wondered if he was looking for another argument to persuade her to marry him.
“Theo.” She sat heavily in the middle of the sofa.
His head came up, expression patient.
Her heart grew achy and she had to look at her fingernails. “I don’t want to string you along wondering what you have to do to convince me to marry you. I’m not hesitating because I’m afraid of going to bed with you.”
She bit her lips, keeping her head down while stealing a quick peek upward, noting that she had his attention, one thousand percent. He was virility personified, all his masculine features sharpened, his wide shoulders tense and defined beneath his crisp white shirt.
“Actually, I am a little nervous about that. I’ve had a baby since the last time and it’s not like I’ve had a lot of practice...” She swallowed.
“We’ll be amazing, Jaya. Just like last time.” His voice reverberated deep in his chest.
If she hadn’t been sitting, she would have fallen, he made her so weak. She grasped for the words she needed to say. “I’m not afraid you’d be violent or disrespectful, either. I know I could trust you about most things.”
“But not all things.” Tone cracked with a jag of disbelief, he recoiled in hurt.
She swallowed, knowing this would be difficult.
“You didn’t call me back,” she said in a small voice. “I know you said you wouldn’t, but...” She tried to shrug off how foolish she felt, how bare this fantasy of hers left her. “I thought I was different. I thought you liked me.”
His face transformed in slow degrees, falling from intense focus on her to inward comprehension, into lost hope and finally, self-hatred.
“I don’t expect you to love me,” she rushed to say, even though it tore open something inside her. “But I always wanted to marry for love.” Such a girlish dream, so romantic and silly. That’s the message she’d always received, but she still wanted it. “I need something between us that’s not just practicality and hormones. Those things aren’t a real bond. They’re not something you fight for. But if you had any feelings for me at all...”
He did his thing where he froze. Not shrinking. He didn’t cringe, but he braced himself. Like he refused to show how vulnerable he felt, while at the same time expected great pain. “I don’t understand why you’d want me to.”
Careful, she urged herself. He wasn’t being arrogant or callous. He probably, genuinely didn’t understand. She heard the barest inflection on me in his statement and knew this was more about his low opinion of himself than lack of regard for her.
Licking her lips, choosing her words with care, she said, “Everyone wants to be liked. Don’t you?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter to me either way.” Because he’d been reviled by someone who was supposed to love him. The abraded edges of her heart frayed and stung.
“What about your sister? Surely it matters to you that she loves you?”
His shoulder jerked, almost like he was deflecting a blow. “I’m sure she values my loyalty. I take satisfaction in knowing she can count on me.”
He only took what pride he gave himself, would never ask for a smidgen more even from a woman he’d take a bullet to protect. How utterly abandoned he must have felt to mold himself into someone so inaccessible.
“Well, I want to be liked,” Jaya said with one hand cupped in the palm of the other, trying to project calm control when emotion tore at her throat. “I’d like whatever attraction you feel toward me to be for more than whatever parts of me fit into lingerie. Because I think you’re a very good-looking man, but when I say I’m attracted to you, I mean that I like you, Theo.” Love, a voice inside her contradicted, but it was such a huge admission to be in love that she pressed it back into her subconscious, not quite ready to be that vulnerable.
Still, as she lifted her gaze, she was absolutely defenseless, like he must be able to read that her feelings were so much stronger than she was admitting, but she didn’t want to scare him, only let him see she was sincere.
“Jesus, Jaya,” he whispered in a ragged breath, looking away.
His image swam before her brimming eyes, but she thought she’d seen a flinch of great anguish, like her words had touched a very raw part of him. He rubbed his hand across his jaw.
“For God’s sake, why?” he expelled with disbelief.
Oh, you poor, poor man. She rose and went to him, unable to sit so far from him when he was hurting so much. Cupping his head, she forced his tortured expression to face hers.
“Why do I like you? You’re a good man, Theo. When I told you about my assault, you didn’t ask what I was wearing or whether I did something to encourage it. You never once lost patience with those babies even though they kept us up half the night. You protected your little brother when you were barely old enough to—”
“Shh, don’t.” He pulled her into his chest, crushing her so tight she could barely draw breath. His heart pounded against her breast and she felt his swallow where his damp throat was pressed to her temple. His breaths moved harshly in his nostrils as he tried to regain control, holding her against the rise and fall of his shaken breaths.
She let herself soften into him, hoping her signal of acceptance would penetrate.
His own arms loosened a fraction and she wound her arms around his chest. Their embrace became mutual. Tight and close, man and woman. He cupped the back of her head and rubbed his chin on her hair.
“People hate to see me coming,” he said after a long time. “I criticize how they’re doing things, ask for paperwork they can’t find, make them account for items they think are insignificant. You always smiled at me, no matter what I asked for. I was never an imposition to you. That’s so rare for me.”
He combed his fingers through her hair while she closed her eyes against a sharp sting, feeling dampness gather on her lashes and keeping them hidden in his shirt, certain he’d stop holding her if he knew how moved she was.
“Do I like you?” he continued. “I don’t have friends. I don’t know how that works. I wish I could say I loved you, that I could give you everything you want from a man. Knowing you want love tells me I don’t deserve you.”
She hitched in a breath of protest, but he was continuing, arms tightening a fraction to keep her in place.
“But I’m not selfless enough to give you up. I want you in my life. Not just because my mouth waters when I think of you naked. Hell, you can feel how I’m reacting now, but there are a lot of beautiful women out there. There’s only one you. You are special, Jaya.”
She hugged him hard, biting her lips because they were quivering. “Thank you for saying that.”
“But it’s not enough, is it?” He slid heavy hands to her shoulders and eased her back a step. “You do deserve better.”
Here was the crossroads again. She couldn’t know if marrying him was the right choice unless she made it and looked back on having lived with it, but she couldn’t hurt him by rejecting him. All she could do was remember how perfect they had been once and believe that, with time, they could surpass it.
Without