chapter FIFTEEN
COLETTE stalked into his office, her legs trembling with fury. Tears hovered so close to the surface she could taste their salt in the back of her throat. She’d never been so humiliated in her life. After the way that awful, awful old man had looked at her when she’d told him about her marriage to Stephen, she’d wanted to crawl into a hole and simply die. And to have Stephen witness it while she pretended not to notice their obvious rejection of her? It was too much.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, the moment Stephen touched her. “I want a divorce.”
He withdrew as if he’d been stung, but then braced his shoulders before stepping toward her again. “All right,” he said with a grim nod. “I’ll grant you your divorce. After you hear me out.”
She sucked in an inhale that felt like shards of glass, her heart clamoring for her to recant the rash words. But she couldn’t. It was what she needed to survive. Like ripping off a bandage, it had to be done. Short and swift was better than the agony of seeing his resentment grow by slow, cancerous degrees.
Stephen hadn’t turned on the lights, and she was glad of it. She was glad the mellow moonlight slanting through the wide windows cast her in shadow and him in a pale white glow. It illuminated his skin and the startling white edges of cuff and collar, painting him in a wash of silver and glittering blue within his black hair. He was beautiful and she loved him. But tonight had taught her that she could never have him.
“I took you away from my family for a reason,” he said, inching close enough for her to catch his scent.
Her body reacted on a visceral level. Wanting. Yearning. She wanted him to touch her, to trail his fingertips over her flushed skin and to taste the seeking warmth of her mouth. She wanted him to make her forget. But she was done dreaming for things she could never have.
“Oh? And what reason’s that?”
“It’s not what you think,” he said. “It’s not that you aren’t good enough for me.” He stepped closer, until his face tipped mere inches over hers. Until his dark mouth hovered so, so close over hers. “Or that you aren’t good enough to be a Whitfield.”
She gulped a shallow breath while her pulse thudded in the hollow of her throat. Hearing her fears put to words, true though they might be, didn’t make them any easier to accept. “I don’t care. I never wanted to be a Whitfield anyway.”
“I know.” He tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear, his fingers grazing the skin along the side of her neck. “And I knew it would be even harder to convince you to change your mind after you met my family. I knew they’d make you hate us all.”
She stiffened beneath his fingers, though she didn’t withdraw. She couldn’t make herself abandon the sweet torture of his touch. Not yet. “Only because they hate me.”
“They hate me, too. They’ve hated anything and everything that was important to me since the day I was born.”
“Then why—?”
“Do you want to know the real reason I haven’t seen Mum’s family since her death?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“They hate the Whitfields, all Whitfields, because of what they did to Mum.”
She didn’t speak, waiting for him to elaborate.
He inhaled. Exhaled. Then inhaled again, as if trying to rearrange memories he’d buried a lifetime ago. “Mum didn’t quite fit the Whitfield mold of what makes a proper wife. She was Irish, she was poor, and she was a barmaid before she married my father.”
Stunned, Colette could only blurt, “What?”
“The O’Fallons owned a string of pubs in London’s east end, and Mum was their only daughter, born twelve years after their sixth son.”
Her thoughts reeled as her previous assumptions about Stephen did a complete one-eighty. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because I don’t like revisiting what happened to her.” A grim frown tugged at his mouth. “Mum came from a huge family of loud, brawling men and stubborn, smart-mouthed women. She was a petite black-haired beauty surrounded by a tribe of giant freckled redheads.”
Colette simply stared at his face, trying to reframe her perception of Stephen’s background.
“Her parents used to claim she was a fairy left behind in exchange for a keg of their best brew.”
“But … how did she end up married to your father?”
“Father came in for a pint with some friends, and she served him his beer.”
She shook her head, trying to reconcile the Whitfields’ past with what all she’d overheard the family say to Stephen. Why would they forbid him to marry someone beneath his station when his own mother had come from such humble beginnings?
“Then why …? I’d have thought he’d choose someone a little more …” She paused, unsure how to proceed. “How does a Whitfield go from being served a beer to marrying the barmaid?”
Stephen’s jaw flexed. “Mum was a good Catholic girl and Father wanted her. Marriage was the only option she’d consider.”
“I take it the Whitfields did not approve?” His expression clouded. “Not at all. Fortunately, Father had reached his majority and he already owned his half of the Whitfield Grand. It was too late to take it back, so the family couldn’t do anything to stop him.” “Then that’s good, right?”
“No. Since they couldn’t do anything to Father, they took their hatred out on Mum. Every chance they had, they told her she was working-class trash, unfit to marry into their lofty ranks of privilege and wealth. They were like sharks, circling for the kill.”
Her stomach clenched with empathy. “Your poor mother.” “The Whitfields are a cruel, ruthless lot, no matter the age or gender of their target.” He lifted haunted eyes and the odd sheen of vulnerability she saw there made her heart do a queer little twist. “That’s why I didn’t tell them about us marrying. That’s why I didn’t want you to go to the party tonight. It wasn’t because I was embarrassed about you. It was because I was protecting you.”
He was protecting her? “From a few nasty remarks lobbed by people I don’t care about? You know I’m tougher than that, Stephen.”
Again his gaze shifted back to his hands. Almost as if he were afraid to let Colette see inside. “So was Mum. But she died anyway.” “What?”
“She was at one of Grandfather’s birthday parties, a little tipsy and a little more outspoken than usual, when a whole pack of Whitfields attacked her. The things they said to her were awful. Mean and cruel and abusive. They told her she didn’t deserve to be one of them and that she’d doomed my father to failure and mediocrity by marrying him. She ran out, crying and unsteady on her feet, and too upset to look where she was going. A car hit her before Father or I could stop her.”
Colette simply stared at him in horrified silence.
“Father was never the same after she died. He blamed himself for marrying her, for subjecting her to the monsters that were his family. He stopped eating. Stopped getting out of bed. He forgot he had a son and died six months later.” He sucked in a breath and braced his shoulders, appearing strong despite the wounded look in his shuttered eyes. “Fortunately I was big for my age, and good with my fists, and Father had a good lawyer on retainer who was able to protect my inheritance from the Whitfields until I was old enough to protect it myself. But it was not a happy time in my life. I spent much of it scared and alone.”
“Oh, Stephen.” She understood now. She understood his stubborn refusal to love and be loved. He’d never known the benefits of love; he’d only known the pain. “I’m so sorry.” Her heart twisted within her chest and she lifted a hand to his upper arm. As foolish as she was, it was impossible not to touch him.
He shook her off. “Mum had been the world to Father, his reason for living, and he didn’t know how to function with her gone. I saw how his need for her made him miserable, how losing her incapacitated him and made him weak. He couldn’t even look at me after she was gone because I reminded him of what he’d lost.” He swallowed and lifted his gaze to the glass behind her head. “I swore that I’d never let a woman do that to me or any children I happened to have. I swore I’d never be so blind that I chose a wife with my heart instead of my head.”
Her heart sank. “So you chose me.”
“Yes, I chose you. And I told myself it was with my head. I told you the same thing, praying you’d believe it. That you wouldn’t run away. You were smart, you were a good mother to our child, and you worked hard. I liked you and you weren’t needy. I respected you and I enjoyed your company. You seemed like the perfect choice.”
She remained silent, bracing herself for the truth.
“But I lied,” he said, his flinty blue gaze returning to roam over her face. Her body. The distance between them became charged, like the expectant silence suspended between the strike of lightning and the clap of thunder. He closed the distance between them, his breath hot against her ear. “I lied to you and to myself. Because my head had nothing to do with my choice.”
An awful shaking took up residence in her legs.
“Tonight proved it to me. When I thought I might lose you. When I saw myself repeating the mistakes of my father and not caring.” His voice trembled and he braced his arms against the glass behind her, his head dipping low against her cheek. “I married you because I’d be lost without you. I married you because I need you, more than I think I’ve ever needed anyone. I’ve been blind with needing you, so much that I couldn’t sleep at night.”
A crazy blend of doubt and joy filled her heart, winnowing its way through her body and making her hands itch to touch him, to lift his face so she could read the truth in his eyes.
“But I knew you’d never marry me for me. You deserved better than a wretch like me, and I knew it. That’s why I didn’t hold on to you with both hands when I had the chance. I wanted to spare you the hell of being married to a Whitfield. Of being married to me. But then Emma gave me the perfect excuse to claim you, to take what should never have been mine,” he whispered fiercely. “And I’m sorry.”
“Stephen—”
“It’s not you who isn’t good enough,” he interrupted. “It’s me.”
“You’re wrong,” she said into the trembling silence between them.
He lifted his burning gaze to hers, chips of burning blue ice within a haggard face. A face she loved. “Don’t,” he ground out. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Oh, Stephen, you know I’m a terrible liar.” Forcing lightness to her tone, she reached to cup his lean cheek. “It’s one of my flaws, I’m afraid.”
He closed his eyes, turning his mouth to the center of her palm. He rested his lips against it for a moment, his throat bobbing with his swallow before he straightened. “I know I don’t deserve to ask this, but I’m going to ask anyway …”
“Yes,” she answered, her heart in her throat.
“Yes?” His brow creased with bewildered doubt. “But you don’t even know the question.”
She reached to cup his dear face between her hands. “It doesn’t matter what you ask, Stephen, because I love you. My answer will always be yes.”
“You love me?” he asked, his voice a rough, pleading rasp.
“Yes.”
“But why?” He shut his eyes, and the words worked within his throat. “Why would you love me when I’ve given you no reason to do so?”
Colette’s heart ached for the lonely boy who’d lost both his parents too young, for the lonely man who couldn’t associate love with anything other than loss and pain. She dropped her hands to his chest and splayed her fingers wide. “Because inside here, beneath the walls you throw up to keep the world at bay, there’s a fine, loyal, good man. Because when you touch me I come alive inside. Because you want to make me happy, even when I frustrate you. Because you’re patient and kind and generous. Because you’re a wonderful father. You’re the other half of me. And because the thought of being without you makes me feel like there’s a hole in my chest.” She hauled in a breath, feeling the steady thrumming of his heart beneath her palms. “I love you because you’re you, Stephen, and because when I’m with you I can be me.”
“I love you too,” he said in a soft rasp. “God help me, I love you too.”
The deep confession from his beautiful mouth, those three little words she’d waited a lifetime to hear, set her heart singing with joy. “Tell me again.”
“I love you, Colette.”
It was so much easier to say than he’d thought it would be. As if the simple exchange of those three tiny, bare words stripped him of all the insecurities and doubts that had plagued him since childhood. And then she smiled at him, renewing his resolve to be the man she wanted. The man she needed him to be.
Stephen gathered Colette up against his chest, hauling her close enough that he could feel her heart beating against his. “I love you,” he repeated, the words, now freed, clamoring to be said again and again. Shouted from the rooftops. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.”
Nothing he said would be enough to demonstrate his depth of feeling. He’d simply have to show her. Now. And every moment of every tomorrow they ever shared. Dipping his head, he hovered over her sweet lips, sensing her warm smile that curved in response. He backed up just enough to see her hazel eyes, a smile of his own catching at his mouth.
“Don’t tease me like that,” she breathed, looping her long arms about his neck and trying to pull him back down. “You know I’ve been wanting for days to kiss you again.”
He bent toward her, until nothing but their heated exhalations separated their lips. “Not nearly as much as I,” he said. “I’ve been starved for your kisses, aching for you every hour, every minute, every second that we’ve been apart.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” she gasped breathily.
His laugh rumbled low and deep. “I’m trying to decide whether I want to kiss you shallow, slow or deep.” He lifted his hands to her lovely face, cupping her fragile jaw within his palms. “I’m trying to decide whether to start here,” he murmured against her trembling mouth, “or here.” He slid west, his lips and breath hovering near her dainty earlobe. “Or here,” he breathed as he moved his hands to the back of her head, angling her head back and nuzzling the juncture between her neck and shoulder. He rubbed his whiskered chin against the delicate ridge of her collarbone. “Or even here,” he teased, and her little gasp sent an arrow of need straight to his groin.
He withdrew enough to peer into her face. Her eyelids had drifted to half mast, her rosy lips parted and her breath coming in shallow pants. He felt her arousal, the eager responsiveness of her body, with every hungry inch of his. And still he tarried.
“I plan to kiss you from head to toe,” he promised. “To lick every freckle, taste every crease, and savor every delectable inch of you until you squirm and shout and beg me for more.”
She shuddered within his arms, and the fan of her lashes lifted. He felt the heat of her gaze to his knees. “I’m waiting,” she whispered.
“I’m here,” he said, dipping to gather her up into his arms for the second time that night. “And we’re not coming up for air until Emma’s got a little sister to torment and tease.”