“Because I don’t,” he lied.
Destiny gave him a chiding, disbelieving look. “Oh, please,” she admonished. “You need a real woman in your life, Ben, not a portrait, however magnificent it might turn out to be.”
“Stay out of this,” he told her flatly.
“Too late. I’m in the thick of it. I brought her into your life and now you’re both hurting because of it.”
“I forgive you,” he said. “Eventually Kathleen will, too. Now go away.”
She smiled at that. “Forgiveness doesn’t come that easily to you,” she chided. “Besides, there’s nothing to forgive, is there? Kathleen is the perfect woman for you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s the only thing that matters,” she said fiercely.
He gave Destiny a hard look. “I thought you dragged her out here because of my art. Wasn’t she merely supposed to convince me that I had talent?”
“I think we both know better than that.”
“Well, whatever your intentions, it was a mistake.”
“You keep telling yourself that. Maybe you’ll wind up believing it. Of course, you’ll also be old and alone and bitter.”
“Not so alone,” he muttered, not liking the picture she painted. “I’ll have you.”
“Not forever, darling,” she reminded him matter-of-factly. “And your brothers have their own lives now, their own families. You’ll always be a part of those lives, of course, but you need to be—you deserve to be—the center of someone’s universe. Even more important, you need to make someone the center of yours.”
“Why?” he asked, not even beginning to understand. Loneliness had become a way of life long ago. Even when his whole family had been around, he’d felt alone.
“Because, in the end, love is the only thing any of us has that truly matters.”
“You’ve been courted. You’ve been admired by many a man, but you’ve chosen to live without the love of a man all these years,” he reminded her.
“And that was probably a costly mistake, not just for me, but for all of you,” she admitted. She gave him a surprisingly defiant look. “Moreover, it’s one I intend to correct before too long.”
Ben seized on the implication. “What on earth does that mean?” he demanded, not entirely sure he liked the sound of it and not just because he hated having his own world turned upside down, which any change in Destiny’s life was bound to do.
“Nothing for you to fret about,” she reassured him. “I won’t do anything until I know you’re settled and happy.”
He scowled at her. “Isn’t that blackmail? If I decide to maintain the status quo, you’re stuck here, so therefore I have some obligation to what? Get married?”
She beamed at him. “That would do nicely. Let me know when you and Kathleen have set a date.”
“Hold it,” he protested when she started toward the door. “No date. No wedding. I am not letting you blackmail me into making a decision I’m not ready to make, will probably never be ready to make.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Benjamin, now you’re just being stubborn,” she declared, facing him with an exasperated expression. “It’s the worst of the Carlton traits. Everyone has always said you were the most like me, but I see absolutely no evidence of that right now. Whatever the choices I made, at heart I’m a romantic. I believe in happily ever after. I certainly thought I taught you more about grabbing on to life with both hands.”
“You tried,” he admitted grudgingly.
“Then why are you here when there’s a woman in Alexandria who’s brokenhearted because she thinks she pushed you too hard? She’s terrified you’ll think she only slept with you to get her hands on your paintings.”
The thought had never crossed his mind, at least not until this moment. Now he had to wonder. As soon as he did, he dismissed the idea. There wasn’t a shred of duplicity in Kathleen. He wished he could say the same about his sneaky aunt.
“Nice try,” he congratulated her. “For a minute there you had me going.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was with Kathleen yesterday after you’d gone. She’s beside herself. If you don’t believe me, call Melanie or Beth. We were all there.”
The thought of that made his skin crawl. “What the hell was going on, some sort of Carlton hen party?” He shuddered. “Just thinking about all four of you gathered around discussing me and Kathleen is enough to twist my stomach into knots.”