“Not anymore.” She lifted her delicate, stubborn chin. “I refuse to engage in emotional warfare with you, Coburn. I’ve had a lifetime of it already. If we’re going to raise this child together without creating a war zone, we need neutral ground.”
“So in other words you’re being a coward.”
“No, I’m being smart. A self-preservationist. We both know how you can rip me apart with the easiest of efforts. You did it that night at your apartment. That’s what started all this. So now we take it out of the equation.”
“Let’s just be clear here,” he countered, his tone edged with a warning note. “You started it that night. Not me.”
“Funny how you learn from your mistakes.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the railing. “So I’m supposed to be in a marriage with no physical gratification. How do you think that’s going to work?”
“You were the one giving the lectures on self-sacrifice. Or was that just you talking and me listening?”
He thought about how she had taken him apart inside earlier with that kiss he hadn’t allowed himself the night their baby was conceived. How, in using that as a weapon against her, he had allowed her to penetrate his defenses. He may be as on board as her about avoiding emotional entanglement, but sex wasn’t something he could do without.
“All right,” he said quietly, holding her defiant gaze. “We play it your way until you decide you want to change the rules. And when that happens, I will be acquiescent in your hands, sweetheart, because I will be way overdue.”
Antagonism flecked her smoky gaze. “I will not change the rules, Coburn. I’m the one who stayed away for a year. I’m the one who filed the divorce papers, remember? I have willpower.”
“Do you?” He closed the distance between them until they were mere centimeters apart. Her breath fanned across his cheek, quickened when he dragged his thumb over the pulse point at the base of her throat. “I don’t see the point in denying ourselves the very potent physical connection we share.”
“I do,” she said grimly, holding herself perfectly still under his touch. “I’ve told you my conditions.”
He brought his mouth to the shell of her ear. Felt the tremor that went through her. “Why? What is it you need to hide so badly from me? What hurt is buried so deep inside of you, you can’t let me near it?”
She pressed a hand to his chest and stepped back, a glitter in her eyes that said he’d struck a nerve. “How about we reverse that? How about we go upstairs right now, strip down and while we do it, you tell me why you run from everything? Why you hate family get-togethers with your mother so much? Why you and Harrison are always at each other’s throats? Why bicycling in the Alps is preferable to getting to know my family so you might not hate each other?”
His mouth curled. “You read too much into things, Diana. My mother is a cold fish of the highest order. Your parents hated me from the start, so why should I bother? And my brother and I are close again, thank you for asking.” He lifted a brow. “Does that cover it all?”
“Not even close,” she breathed. “So hating my parents means you won’t be there to support me?”
“Did you support me? About half of the gossip columns in New York predicted the demise of our marriage before it happened because you were never by my side. I had a wife who was a mirage.”
“You had a wife who was a resident. A resident, Coburn. The doctor who does everything and more because we aren’t senior enough to do anything but take it.” Her eyes glittered like black diamonds. “I was exhausted, I could hardly put a foot in front of one another, and you kept pushing, pushing me until I cracked. All you had to do was wait five years, five years, and things would have leveled out. But your ego, your desire for attention, couldn’t do it.”
He clenched his hand tight around his glass. “If you mean my ego couldn’t handle being put second to your job every single time, then yes, that’s true. You shut down when you work, Diana. You put every single bit of emotional energy you have into your patients, and when you get home, there’s nothing left for me.” He waved a hand at her. “Men are simple creatures. Throw us a bone every once in a while and we’re good. But you didn’t even have that for me.”
The color drained from her face. She looked pale, so very pale standing there in front of him. It made his guts twist. But this was a necessary conversation, long, long overdue.
“You’re right,” she said finally, “I didn’t. I expected you to understand the demands of my career. To let me put my future, our future, first until that tough period was over.”
“While I spent five years in a relationship with myself?” He shook his head. “Life is too short for me to sit by while you learn the meaning of balance, Diana. Begging for affection is not my style.”
“While I was begging for support. Begging for help getting through the five toughest years of my life.”
“And then what? You would have convinced Frank Moritz to give you that fellowship and it would have been another two years of hell while you obsessed about being perfect for him. When was it all going to end? You have this need to prove yourself I don’t understand.”
“Because you run away from your need to do the same.” She threw the words at him, bitter honesty ruling her now. “You hated that your father gave Grant Industries to Harrison to run. Instead of fighting for it, instead of proving to Harrison you should have equal footing, you pretended you didn’t care. Well, I care. I will not apologize for caring. I will not apologize for wanting some security in my life so when you decide you don’t want me anymore, I have something to fall back on.”
His mouth dropped open. “What the hell are you talking about?” She slammed her mouth shut. He closed the distance between them, capturing her jaw in his fingers. “Why would you say that? Give me one reason that would have ever led you to think I would have left you. One.”
Her gaze dropped from his. “It would have happened eventually. You were constantly disappointed in me. I could never give you what you wanted.”
His fingers tightened around her jaw as rage swelled inside him. “This is not about my disappointment in you. This is about your history with your parents. I worshipped the ground you walked on, Diana. I would have done anything to make our marriage work. But how was I going to do that when you were so busy staking out your territory so you could run the minute things got bad?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It was absolutely like that.” He let go of her jaw and stepped back before he truly lost it. “What else did I need to do to make you feel secure? What else, because it is beyond me?”
“You could have kept your hands off those women.” She yelled the words at him, the champagne in her glass tipping over the side in her fury. “You could have kept it in your pants long enough to convince me that I meant something to you, Coburn. That I wasn’t replaceable as easily as your next flavor of ice cream.”
His vision clouded over as he clenched his free hand at his side. “You walked out on me, remember? I tried to call you. I tried to make things right and you wouldn’t have me, so do not accuse me of being unfaithful.”
“Weeks later. After you’d already been with those women.”
Fury tunneled through him, flaying every centimeter of his skin. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. Because I can’t help but remember the timing. It was after you threw my attempts to talk in my face for about the fifth time that I got the message and satisfied my needs elsewhere. You made it clear you didn’t want me, so I took what I needed.”
She blinked hard. Stared at him for a long moment before she looked away. “I hope she was good, Coburn. I hope she satisfied your slavish devotion to your needs so you didn’t go without.”
“I would have preferred my marriage was intact, but I didn’t have that choice.”
; Color leeched from her cheeks. She turned away from him, rested her forearms on the railing and drew in a deep breath. “Rehashing all of this isn’t going to help us move forward.”
“I beg to differ. I’m finding it highly illuminating. Who knows? If we put all our cards on the table, we might even find some clarity.”
“With a card counter like you?” She kept her gaze on the horizon, where the sun had sunk so low it was about to be swallowed up by the sea. Her skin looked too pale in the dying light, her shoulders set high in a defensive posture, her mouth a brittle line. As if a surge of wind might blow her away.
“We should eat,” he said roughly. “We can continue this conversation over dinner.”
“I’m not very hungry. Maybe I’ll just go straight to bed.”
“You will eat.” His harsh tone brought her head around. “There is no running from things you don’t like this week. We are facing them head-on.”
Something flickered in her eyes, but she didn’t argue. Likely because she knew she had to keep her strength up for the baby rather than any form of obedience. He pulled out a chair for her at the candlelit table Lucie had set on the deck, then settled into the one beside her. Her gaze flicked to the chair opposite her as if she’d rather he sat there, and it made him smile inside. Letting her get comfortable wasn’t part of his plan. Infiltrating her was.
“We need to buy a proper home,” he announced, filling their water glasses.
“I heard a business associate is selling his town house down the street from me. It actually has a yard. Maybe we should take a look at it.”
Her hand paused midway to her water glass. “I’m not living in Chelsea.”
“A fifteen-million-dollar townhome isn’t good enough for you?”
“Not if I’m bumping into your castoffs in the park.”
His mouth quirked. She’d be shocked at how few of those women he’d taken to bed. Everyone would.
“My discards won’t be strolling in the park at midday.”
“I’m not living in Chelsea, Coburn.”
“And I’m not living on the East Side. Maybe we split it down the middle and go somewhere neutral? The Upper West Side perhaps?”
Lucie set their salads down in front of them. The scowl disappeared from Diana’s face long enough for her to give the cook a smile. It disappeared when she left. “I need to think about it. It needs to be somewhere central for me for work.”
“You don’t have a job. And you won’t for a few years to come.”
“You’ve decided that, have you?” She picked up her fork and pointed it at him. “I have a career, Coburn. I’ve spent fourteen years studying to become a surgeon. Maybe you should stay home and I should work.”
“And that would make sense since you just quit your job, you’re the one having the baby who’ll need the recovery time and I just took the job as CEO of a multibillion-dollar company.”
“You’re the one preaching sacrifice.”
“Not on this. Yes you will go back to work, but the early years for a child are crucial. You know that better than anyone. You can go back to work when they’re in grade school.”
“Grade school? That would kill my career. Who’s going to want to hire me after five years away from the knife?”
“What’s the alternative? Do you want our child to be raised by a nanny?”
A flush filled her cheeks. “I don’t know. I need more time to think about it.”
“I do. I was raised by a succession of nannies. My father worked every waking hour of the day and my mother spent all her time laying the charitable groundwork to be a politician’s wife. I will not have our child raised like that. We will be emotionally and physically present for him or her.”
Her hand fisted on the table. “Me working doesn’t preclude that.”
“Yes it does. Your job is all consuming and you know it.”
“I can work part-time.”
“And how does that work out for most of the surgeons you know? Then comes the phone call at two in the morning and you’re out the door. You need to be realistic here.”
“Coburn—”
“It’s not happening. You have to start acknowledging your limits, Diana. Now.”
She blinked hard and stared down at her plate. He watched her in astonishment. Were those tears? Tears of anger or real tears?
She looked up at him. The stormy expression in her ebony eyes gave him his answer. “I found out a week ago that my life as I know it is going to change irrevocably. I gave up my dream in Africa because of it and have agreed to give this marriage a shot for the sake of this baby. But if you continue to push me like this, I will walk the minute we set foot in New York and you will be talking to me through our lawyers.”
He took in the defiant angle of her chin. The fierce glitter in her eyes. She meant it. “All right,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’ll back off, I promise. But we need to make these decisions soon. Finding a house in New York is going to take time.”
“Wrapping my head around all this is going to take time. Give me some space.”
He proved he could by making small talk throughout the rest of the meal and ensuring she put food in her mouth, albeit a small amount. By the time they got to dessert, she looked as if she was going to fall asleep in her seat. When her eyelids closed for the third time in a minute, he pushed back his chair and stood up. “Bedtime.”
Her eyes flew open.
“For you,” he drawled. “Although you know I am available whenever you have the urge.”
She scowled at him and stood. Swayed slightly. He stepped to her side with a lightning-quick reflex and slid an arm around her waist. “What’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering closed in a far-too-pale face. “I just stood up too fast.”
He frowned as she leaned into him. “Does this happen a lot?”
“It’s my cardiovascular system catching up.” She took a few more breaths, then stepped away from him. She didn’t look much steadier on her feet. He cursed and slid an arm under her legs and back to pick her up. Her protests ringing in his ears, he carried her inside and up the stairs past a wide-eyed Lucie, who probably thought they were destined for a night of hot sex. He wished.
“This is unnecessary,” Diana muttered as he shouldered his way into her room and nudged on the light. He set her down on the carpet, keeping his arm around her because she still looked far too pale for his liking. She extracted herself and looked expectantly toward the door. “Thank you.”
He shook his head. “I want you in bed first. Otherwise I’ll have visions of you keeling over in the bathroom.”
“Coburn, I’m fine.”
He sat down on the bed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Go brush your teeth.”
She marched off to the bathroom and shut the door with a loud thump. He turned the bed down and waited. When she came back a few minutes later, her cheeks had recovered a bit of color. “You can go now.”
“Get undressed first and into bed.”
She shook her head. “Out.”
“I don’t take orders from fainting pregnant women.”
“I didn’t faint.”
He set his jaw.
She muttered an expletive under her breath, raised her arms and stripped off her dress. His gaze drifted down over her lacy white bra to her flat stomach. “When will you start to show?”
“Not for a while.”
She reached past him for her nightshirt. He caught her hand with his, bringing it to the curve of her stomach. Her breath hissed from her throat as his fingers flattened across her warm, silky skin. His baby was in there. His baby. A surge of emotion passed through him, almost blinding in its intensity. Up until this point, he had felt only anger and frustration, but this, this was somethi
ng else entirely. Elemental. Powerful.
He raised his gaze to Diana’s. Something passed between them then—the knowledge that they had created this together. That no matter how mixed up they had been when they had made this life, it was about to transcend them both.
He moved his gaze back up over her breasts, straining against the lace of her bra. They were swollen, larger than the handful he’d always coveted, the tips of each peak stained a darkish red-brown.
“Your body is already changing.”
Her nipples hardened beneath his gaze. Her cheeks were filled with a rosy color when he lifted his eyes to hers. She curled her fingers around his hand on her stomach and pulled it away, confusion darkening her eyes to inky black pools. “Leave, Coburn.”
“Why?” A husky note infiltrated his voice. “You know how much easier this would be if you let me get under your skin.”
“Easier how? So you can have your way?”
He immersed himself in the hazy, conflicted desire shining in her eyes. “Because of all the things we’ve screwed up, this has always been right.”
“No.” Her denial pierced the air between them, an iron edge to her vehement tone. “This is what we do, Coburn. We use sex to cover up all the other things that are wrong with us. If you truly want this to work, it has to be about more than that.”
“See, that’s where you and I see it differently.” He reached up and tucked a wayward chunk of her hair behind her ear. “For me, sex is part of the solution.”
She turned and reached for her nightshirt. Stripping off her bra with maximum efficiency, she pulled on the short, less than feminine cotton shirt he’d always hated, hiding her curves from view. But not before he got a perfect silhouette of her ripe, swollen breasts, which woke his frustration from that afternoon up in a hurry.
“How about,” he offered silkily, dropping his gaze to her bare, delectable thighs, “I just take care of you? The way you like it best? It would put you to sleep...get all that frustration out. We don’t even have to call it sex.”
Reunited for the Billionaire's Legacy: Christmas at the Castello (bonus novella) Page 9
