Christmas at the Castello(15)

She couldn't. She could not deny it when she felt so lost.

"Take me home," she said quietly. "We can work this out, but take me home."

"No." He crossed his arms over his chest, his expression hard and  implacable. "This is where we learn to sacrifice for the greater good.  We leave our selfishness at the door and give our child the future he or  she deserves. And the first step of making that happen is learning to  understand each other because we clearly never did."

She stared at him, knowing on some level he was right, but afraid to  admit it. Afraid what this might mean for her sanity to try again with  Coburn...

His mouth flattened at her continued silence. "I've had clothes put in  your closet, including a bathing suit. I suggest you put one on while  you think about doing the right thing. I have some cooling off to do."         

     



 

Her gaze dropped to his rampant masculinity straining against the  confines of his shorts. It should have made her feel better to know he'd  been as caught up in that as she had. Instead, she felt confused and on  the verge of tears. She swallowed the feeling of helplessness that  invaded her as she watched him walk away, so familiar and yet such a  stranger to her now.

Her mind was too full to think, the late-morning sun already so hot the  silk robe was sticking to her body like a glove. She wanted to thumb  her nose at Coburn, to protest by going to her room and staying there,  but the thought of being inside instead of on the breezy beach was  intolerable. It seemed there was no way out of here.

She put on one of the bikinis hanging in the closet in her room,  grabbed a protein shake from the well-stocked refrigerator in the  kitchen and went down to the beach. A perfect stretch of golden sand  stretched in front of the cottage, bounded by two high cliffs that rose  in a dramatic collage of crashing waves, sparkling sun and rough-hewn  rock. It was a view that must have cost its owner millions.

She wondered what Arthur Kent would think if he knew Coburn was holding  her prisoner here. Would he care? Or would he bow down to the Grant  influence as everyone else on this godforsaken earth did?

Frustration seared her bones. She stalked past Coburn, who was just a  blip in the turquoise water, his powerful arms cutting a path through  the sea far out in the breakers. Who did he think he was? He could not  do this to her. And yet he was.

She kept walking until she reached the end of the cove. Stowing her  empty protein shake on a rock, she went for a dip in the sea. The warm  water slipped over her limbs like a silken gift from heaven. Something  like sanity returned as she flipped over on her back and floated on the  waves. She stayed there for a long time, her negative emotions draining  away with the lull of the surf and the sun.

A villa sat perched on top of the cliff, sparkling in the sunlight,  looking so ethereal surrounded by the clouds it brought to mind a house  of the gods straddling the earth and heavens. Did it belong to Arthur  Kent? It certainly would be the view she'd choose.

Perhaps Coburn would introduce her to their hosts when they returned on  the weekend. If she hadn't found a way to do smoke signals and get  herself rescued before then...

Her mouth curved. At last finding something amusing about her  intolerable situation, she pulled herself out of the water and went to  sit on a big rock to dry off. Leaning back on her palms, she  contemplated the endless horizon of blue. Allowed herself to consider  what Coburn was proposing. She couldn't deny reconciling with him and  bringing up their baby together would provide the optimal environment  for their child. Studies had shown that children were better off in  families with parents who stayed together as long as the situation  between the couple was on a reasonably agreeable footing. What changed  that prognosis was when the relationship became toxic; when the  environment was more harmful to the child's well-being than beneficial.  Then a couple was better off separating.

She thought about what Beth had said about her and Coburn. That  sometimes the most passionate relationships were the ones that burned  out the brightest because of the intensity of the emotion involved. It  was so true for them. They had never had a middle ground. It had always  been highs and lows: one minute they were completely wrapped up in each  other, the next they were at each other's throats.

Because they had refused to compromise. Coburn had been right about  that. They had both been too selfish, too wrapped up in their own  desires to want to give.

She closed her eyes against the brilliant power of the sun. As  altruistic as she'd like to believe her work, as much as she hadn't had  any choice in the crazy hours her residency had demanded, she had a  choice now. Surgeons had families. They made it work. Yes, having a baby  put a dent in your career. No matter what the Pollyanna types liked to  say, motherhood slowed your ascent up the ladder. She'd heard male  doctors make comments in the surgeon's lounge about dilettante mothers  who didn't take their careers seriously. There was a stigma about it in  the still-chauvinistic surgical community.         

     



 

But none of this changed the fact that she was pregnant now. She either  brought this child up with Coburn in a loveless marriage based on sex  or they negotiated joint custody and passed the child back and forth  like a tennis match.

She grimaced. Neither sounded appealing. To live with Coburn knowing he  would never love her the way he once had would tear her heart out.  Treating her child like a pawn in their separate agendas seemed equally  distressing. Unless she found a way to control her feelings. Unless, she  expanded in an "aha" moment, she took her emotions out of the equation.  Which would by definition mean no sex. Just a convenient partnership to  bring up their child.

Not what Coburn had been envisioning, surely, by his speech on the  plane. But the only way she could play this without ending up a victim  of her feelings was to negate them.

She thought about what she'd said to him. About marrying again...  Thought about how completely he had owned her just now when she had  kissed him. There would never be a man like that for her again. He was  right. You came across that once in a lifetime if you were lucky. She'd  had her turn.

What clinched it for her finally was Coburn's statement about giving  their child a better emotional base than he'd had. She wanted that. She  wanted her baby to grow up with parents who cared about his or her  emotional well-being-parents who didn't treat their offspring like a  chess piece in the game of marriage. Parents who cared about more than  what grades the child brought home or what school he or she got into.

Her eyes fluttered closed. In that, she and Coburn were united. Not a bad thing to devote your marriage to.

When the sun got too hot to take, she stood up and brushed the sand  from her limbs. For the first time in a week since her doctor had  uttered those momentous three words, she had clarity as she walked back  along the beach. Her husband might not like her plan, but that was all  that was on offer. He could take it or leave it.





  CHAPTER EIGHT

AS THE SUN dipped into the sea in a spectacular orange and crimson  ending to a brutally hot day and the scents of the island descended over  the cottage in a dozen different perfumes that stroked the senses,  Coburn was just about to tell the cook his wife was feeling unwell and  ask if she would take a tray up to her room when Diana appeared on the  deck overlooking the water.

She had changed into one of the filmy, understated dresses Arthur  Kent's PA had left in her room for her, the fuchsia silk dress  embroidered with tiny white flowers making her look delicate and  untouchable. His eyes narrowed on her ultraslim figure. The dress was  too big for her even though it was her usual size. She had lost weight.  She had not been well, and that needed to stop for the sake of their  baby. She would listen to reason.

He watched as she walked to the railing that overlooked the rolling  waves and rested her elbows on the edge. Her back was ramrod straight,  the haughty tilt of her head at a fighting angle. Was it that much of a  bitter pill to come back to him for the sake of this baby? Was being  with him that distasteful?

His lips compressed into a tight line as he clenched his hands by his  sides. Until she'd left him in a move he could never have anticipated,  he had always thought his rocky road with Diana would level out. That  these were the hard years with them where they were finding their way  and they would learn to compromise. He had been in a state of shock when  she'd left, if the truth were to be known. He had expected her to come  back to him as she always did when they fought, when she gave in to the  inevitability that was them. But days had grown into weeks, and when he  had finally called to end the standoff, she'd refused to speak to him.

His mouth curled in a grimace. His naïveté was staggering. The belief  that if you loved someone enough you could overcome the differences that  had ultimately pushed you oceans apart.