Her shattered gaze was more than he could bear, the searching light in them pouring over his very soul, picking out every flaw and secret he hid from the rest of the world. It was painful in the extreme and even though he would never want to inflict more suffering on her, he was relieved when she crumpled with anguish and buried her face in her hands.
He pulled her into his chest, the feel of her fragile curves a pleasure-pain sting. She stiffened as he pinned her to him, but he only dug his fingers into her loose hair, massaging her scalp and pressing his lips to her crown, forcing the embrace because he needed it as much as she did.
“It’s okay, I’m not going to mess it up this time.” His body was reacting to her scent and softness, always did, but he ignored it and hoped she would too. “I’m sorry we keep losing babies, Adara. I’m sorry I didn’t let you see it affects me.”
“I can’t try anymore, Gideon.” Her voice was small and thick with finality, buried in his chest.
“I know.” He rubbed his chin on the silk of her hair, distantly aware how odd this was to hold her like this, not as a prelude to sex, not because they were dancing, but to reassure her. “I don’t expect you to try. That’s what I’m saying. We don’t have to divorce over this. We can stay married.”
She lifted her face, her expression devastated beyond tears, and murmured a baffled “I don’t even know why you want to.”
Under her searching gaze, his inner defenses instinctively locked into place. Practicalities and hard facts leaped to his lips, covering up deeper, less understood motivations. “We’re five years into merging our fortunes,” he pointed out.
Adara dropped her chin and gathered herself, pressing for freedom.
His answer hadn’t been good enough.
His muscles flexed, reluctant to let her go, but he had to. Feelings, he thought, and scowled with displeasure. What was she looking for? A declaration of love? That had never been part of their bargain and it wasn’t a step he was willing to take. Losing babies he hadn’t known was bad enough. Caring deeply for Adara would make him too vulnerable.
He reached to right his chair, nodding at her seat when she only watched him. “Sit down, let’s keep talking about this.”
“What’s the point?” she asked despairingly.
The coward in him wanted to agree and let this madness blow away like dead ashes from a fire. If he were a gentleman, he supposed he’d spare her this torturous raking of nearly extinguished coals. Something deeply internal and indefinable pushed him to forge ahead despite how unpleasant it was. Somehow, giving up looked bleaker than this.
“You don’t salvage an agreement by walking away. You stay in the same room and hammer it out,” he managed to say.
“What is there to salvage?” Adara charged with a pained throb in her voice. Her heart was lodged behind her collarbone like a sharp rock. Didn’t he understand? Everything she’d brought to the table was gone.
Gideon only nodded at her chair, his expression shuttered yet insistent.
Adara dropped into her chair out of emotional exhaustion. For a few seconds she just sat there with her hands steepled before her face, eyes closed, drowning in despair.
“What do you want, Adara?”
She opened her eyes to find him statue hard across from her, expression unreceptive despite his demand she confide.
He was afraid it was something he couldn’t give, she realized. Like love?
A barbed clamp snapped hard around her heart. She wasn’t brave enough to give up that particular organ and had never fooled herself into dreaming a man could love her back, so no, she wouldn’t ask him for love. She settled on part of the truth.
“I want to quit feeling so useless,” she confessed, suffering the sensation of being stripped naked by the admission. “I’m predisposed to insecurity because of my upbringing, I know that. I’m not worthless, but I feel that way in this marriage. Now I can’t even bring children into it. I can’t live with this feeling of inadequacy, Gideon.”
He stared hard at her for a long moment before letting out a snort of soul-crushing amusement.
Adara couldn’t help her sharp exhale as she absorbed that strike. She tried to rise.
Gideon clamped his hand on her arm. “No. Listen. God, Adara...” He shook his head in bemusement, brow furrowed with frustration. “When you asked me to marry you—”
“Oh, don’t!” she gasped, feeling her face flood with abashed color.
He tightened his grip on her wrist, keeping her at the table. “Why does that embarrass you? It’s the truth. You came to me with the offer.”