“No, Nic. That’s not true …”
He rejected her outreached hand with an averting of his head. Her shoulders were sinking in defeat and he wanted to pull her softness into him, beg her to fix the broken spaces in him, but he knew enough about relationships to know that was not what you asked of another person. You didn’t burden them with fulfilling you. Either you came into the relationship whole and able to offer something to build on, or you did the right thing and walked away, leaving them intact.
“I should get back to work,” he said.
When Rowan didn’t say anything he glanced at her.
She was staring with wide eyes, her lips pale in a kind of shock. Finally she offered up a barely perceptible, “Me, too.”
He made himself leave, but felt her gaze follow him all the way down the hall.
“You’re saying Legal is holding you up?” Nic paraphrased a week later, barely listening to the litany of excuses being offered to him.
“Yes, that’s exa—”
“Learn to say more with less, Graeme. That’s how this corporation has grown to where it is. Have Sebastyen call me.” He ended the call, telling himself to quit acting like every self-important bastard in need of anger management classes he’d ever worked with. He was going on a week without sleep, his appetite shot despite Rowan leaving him hearty stews and tender souvlaki and chocolate brownies that melted on his fingers. He wanted an end to this unbearable tension, but the clock ticking down on his time with her frayed his temper a little more each day.
His laptop burbled with an incoming call. Sebastyen got to the heart of the matter immediately. “We’re dragging our feet on several initiatives, waiting on the signing of the petition and the reading of the will. Did you receive the revised documents? Any word on when you’ll see forward movement on that?”
Nic glanced at the date on his screen’s calendar. He’d been putting off talking to Rowan, knowing it would upset her, but time was running out on that too. He ended the call with Sebastyen and went looking for her.
She was in the breakfast room, where abundant windows around the bottom of the south-eastern turret caught the morning sun and French doors led onto the front courtyard. Bins from the island’s thrift store were stacked next to sealed boxes adorned with international courier labels.
“Rowan?”
She jerked, and the look she cast him was startled and wary. They were only speaking when they had to, and every conversation was stiff and awkward. They stared at each other, face-to-face for the first time in days.
Nic wanted to rub at the numb ache that coated his scalp and clung like a mask across his cheeks. His facial muscles felt locked in a scowl. He’d been trying to put her back at a distance, but all he could think was that he’d let her inside him and now there was no way to get her out.
He’d been devastated by her infertility. She wanted a family and something in him desperately wished he could give her one, even though he’d heard her qualifications loud and clear. The right man. Not now. His entire being was hollow with the knowledge that even she knew he would ultimately disappoint her.
He took in the growing fretfulness in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he lied, with a pinch on his conscience. “I just need to talk to you about the papers I asked you to sign.”
Her back went up immediately. Her knuckles on the pen she clutched glowed like pearls. “I said I’d do it tomorrow. I will.”
“That’s not it. Legal had to make a change.” He took a breath. “After I explained that your parents were still married.”
Her brow pleated, but her confused expression quickly gave way to dawning comprehension.
Rowan distantly absorbed what had never occurred to her. The relationship between her parents had been so minimized the last thing she would have called her father was Cassandra’s next of kin. She was her mother’s closest relative. But that wasn’t actually true and of course Nic was way ahead of her on that.
“Don’t—please don’t go to my father with those papers.” Waiting to sign the papers tomorrow was her one excuse to stay here with him. For him to yank that away would cause a huge fissure to open in her.
“I was only going to offer to do it if you prefer not to,” he assured her gently. “But he does have to be the one who signs.”
Her heart gave a hard beat. Of course he did. She should have seen that ages ago. But her mind hadn’t been on anything but tomorrow—and not for the reason it should be. She was leaving and her heart was breaking. She shook herself back to reality.