“Convenience,” she said softly. “Marriage as a convenience.”
He didn’t like the hesitation in her voice, but chalked it up to the fact that she hadn’t had time to fully realize all of the advantages he was offering her. Well, she was a smart woman. She’d work it out and come to the same conclusion he had, given enough time. “Just think about it for a minute.”
“Oh, I am,” she assured him with a small shake of her head. “And while I’m thinking, perhaps you can tell me, Jefferson, just where does love come into this arrangement between us?”
Everything in him went cold and still. He felt himself shutting down, closing off. Hadn’t he couched his proposal in terms that would guarantee love wouldn’t be able to rear its ugly head? He couldn’t have been more clear about it. Irritation flowed through him, but he couldn’t look away from her eyes, swimming with emotion.
“Why does it have to come into it at all?”
“Marriage without love would be a cold and empty sort of thing, don’t you think?”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he argued.
Why was she making this more difficult than it had to be? Damn it. He’d laid it out for her. Explained how he felt and what they could have. But instead of being reasonable, she was going to make him confess everything. Force him to hurt her by telling her exactly why he couldn’t give her what she wanted.
He blew out an impatient breath and stood up, turning his back on her to walk to the balcony and stand in the breeze still rushing in. He’d stayed too long in this place, Jefferson thought. If he’d left a couple of weeks ago, he could have avoided this. Could have spared both of them this.
But he hadn’t been able to leave her. Now they’d both pay for that indulgence. He stared out at the night for a long moment before finally turning his gaze back to her.
She looked ethereal, there in his bed. Her hair a wild tangle, her mouth still swollen from his kisses. Lamplight and shadow played on her features and her eyes shone as she watched him. He steeled himself against the well of emotion threatening to choke him.
“I can’t love you, Maura,” he finally said softly.
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Can’t.” He folded his arms across his chest in a classic pose of self-defense. “I was married before.”
She went absolutely still.
He didn’t like thinking about it. Didn’t like remembering old pain. But there was no choice but to speak of it.
“Her name was Anna and she was the love of my life,” he said, needing to have this said aloud, so that Maura could understand what was keeping him from her. “We were too young to get married, but we did anyway.” He smiled a bit at the memories rushing into his mind. They were soft now, hazy with time and distance, but there was still an innocence and sweetness to them that tugged at his heart.
“What happened?”
“She died.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “She was only twenty-one. I was a year older. It was a stupid accident. Anna was painting our bedroom. She fell off the ladder. Hit her head.” He was quiet for a moment or two, recalling how she’d brushed it off, said she was fine. “She seemed all right. Wouldn’t go to the doctor. Said it was silly to make a big deal over a little bump. She died in her sleep that night. The autopsy found a hemorrhage in her brain.”
“That’s terrible, Jefferson,” Maura said softly. “I’m so sorry for you and for her.”
Mentally, he pulled away from the past and said briskly, “When she died, I swore that I’d never love another woman the way I loved her.”
She drew in a long, deep breath but still remained silent. He hoped she understood. Hoped she could now see that what he was offering her was the best he had inside him. This was it. Take him as he was, or they would have nothing.
Walking back to her, he stood beside the bed and said, “I want to marry you, Maura. Not just because of the baby, either. I like being with you. I like having you beside me at night. I think we could make a good life together.”
Still she was quiet and the shadows had deepened so that he couldn’t even read her eyes now.
“I’m offering you my name,” he told her. “I’m offering to build a life with you and raise our child. But don’t expect love from me, Maura, because I won’t love you. Ever.”
The distant music from the pub on the street below sounded overly loud in the strained silence. Time ticked past in long, drawn-out seconds.
“Without love, we have nothing,” she finally said and Jefferson’s hopes crashed and burned at his feet.
Instinctively, he reached for her, but she scooted off the opposite side of the bed, avoiding his touch. Moving quickly, she gathered up her clothes and started pulling them on.
“Maura,” he said, giving himself points for the calm restraint he heard in his own voice, “if you’ll just be reasonable about this…”
“Reason,” she muttered, buttoning up the front of her shirt with shaking fingers. “The man wants reason when what he’s speaking is nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” He came around the edge of the bed and took her upper arm in a hard grip. “I’m trying to be honest with you. To tell you exactly who and what I am so that there’ll be no more misunderstandings. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Maura. Can’t you see that?”
She yanked herself free of him, stepped into her boots and shook her hair back from her face. “You’re not being honest, Jefferson. Not with me or yourself, come to that. You’re hiding from the future by staying in your past. And that’s cheating not just me, but yourself of what you might find if you’d open your eyes.”
“I’m not hiding,” he said in a snarl, insulted that she would take what he’d offered and throw it back at him. “I don’t hide from anything.”
“And the truly sad part?” she asked quietly. “It’s that you actually believe that.”
She pulled her sweater over her head, scooped up her hair and drew it free to lie on her shoulders. Jefferson’s hands itched to touch it. His whole body yearned to have her back in that bed. Back to where they’d been together just a few short minutes ago.
She stalked from the bedroom into the living area and Jefferson was just a step or two behind her. “Where are you going?”
She sighed. “I’m going home, Jefferson. As you should.”