Marriage Without Love & More Than a Convenient Marriage(74)

Part of him wanted to cut and run, but it was impossible now he understood what was driving her request for a divorce: grief. He understood that frame of mind better than she would suspect. He’d even bolted across the ocean in the very same way, more than once, but he was able to think more clearly this time. Losing the baby was heartrending, but he wasn’t left alone. He still had her. They needed to stick together. With careful navigation, they’d be back on course and sailing smoothly. When she came out the other side, she’d appreciate that he hadn’t let her do anything rash.

He hoped.

Adara blinked as they entered the artificial light of the hotel foyer. The temperature change hit her between the eyes like a blow. The boutique accommodation was the best the island offered, but nothing like the luxury service she took for granted in her thousand-room high-rise hotels. Still, she liked the coziness of this small, out-of-the-way place. She’d give serious thought to developing some hideaways like this herself, she decided.

Another time. Right now she felt like one giant blister, hot and raw, skin so thin she could be nicked open by the tiniest harsh word.

Desire had almost overwhelmed her on the beach. Gideon’s kiss had been an oasis in a desert of too many empty days and untouched nights. His heartfelt words, the way he’d enfolded her as if he could make the whole world right again, had filled her with hope and relief. For a few seconds she had felt cherished, even when his kiss had turned from tenderness to hunger. It had all been balm to her injured soul, right up until he’d begun to tilt them to the sand.

Then fear of pregnancy had undercut her arousal. Her next instinct had been to at least give him pleasure. She liked making him lose control, but then she’d remembered it wasn’t good enough.

It had all crashed into her as a busload of confusing emotions: shattered confidence, anger at her own weakness and a sense of being tricked and teased with a promise that would be broken. If she had had other men, perhaps she wouldn’t be so susceptible to him, but she was a neophyte where men were concerned, even after five years of marriage. She needed distance from him, to get her head straightened out and her heart put back together.

Gideon was given a room card at the same time she was.

As they departed the front desk for the elevators, she said in a ferocious undertone, “You did not get yourself added to my room.” They might share a suite, but never a room. She would die.

“I booked my own,” he said stiffly, the reserve in his voice making her feel as if she’d done something wrong. She hadn’t! Had she? Should she have been more open about the miscarriages?

She shook off guilt she didn’t want to feel. “Gideon—” she began to protest.

“What? You’re allowed a vacation, but I’m not?”

She tilted her head in disgruntlement. That was not what she was driving at. She wanted distance from him.

“Would you like to eat here tonight or try somewhere else?” he said in a continuation of assumptions that were making her crazy.

“It’s been a lot of travel getting here and already a long day. I’m going to shower and rest, possibly sleep through dinner,” she asserted, silently thinking, Go away. Her feelings toward him were infinitely easier to bear when half a globe separated them.

“I’ll email you when I get hungry then. If you’re up, you can join me. If not, I won’t disturb you.”

She eyed him, suspicious of yet another display of ultraconsideration, especially when he walked her to her room. At the last second, he turned to insert his card in the door across from hers.

Her heart gave a nervous jump. So close. Immediately, a jangle went through her system, eagerness and fretfulness tying her into knots. She locked herself into her room, worried that he’d badger her into spending time with him that would roll into rolling around with him. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t have it in her to risk pregnancy and go through another miscarriage.

Even though she ached rather desperately to feel his strong, naked body moving over and into hers.

Craving and humiliation tormented her through her shower and stayed with her when she crawled into bed. She wanted him so much. It made her bury her head under her pillow. She couldn’t live with a man she had no defenses against.

Steadfast to his word, Gideon didn’t disturb her. Adara woke to fading light beyond her closed curtains, startled she’d fallen asleep at all, head fuzzy from a hard four-hour nap.

Like an adolescent desperate for a hint of being popular, she checked her email before rising from bed, scrolling past the work ones that were piling up and honing in on Gideon’s.