Reunited for the Billionaire's Legacy(16)
He thought about how she had taken him apart inside earlier with that kiss he hadn’t allowed himself the night their baby was conceived. How, in using that as a weapon against her, he had allowed her to penetrate his defenses. He may be as on board as her about avoiding emotional entanglement, but sex wasn’t something he could do without.
“All right,” he said quietly, holding her defiant gaze. “We play it your way until you decide you want to change the rules. And when that happens, I will be acquiescent in your hands, sweetheart, because I will be way overdue.”
Antagonism flecked her smoky gaze. “I will not change the rules, Coburn. I’m the one who stayed away for a year. I’m the one who filed the divorce papers, remember? I have willpower.”
“Do you?” He closed the distance between them until they were mere centimeters apart. Her breath fanned across his cheek, quickened when he dragged his thumb over the pulse point at the base of her throat. “I don’t see the point in denying ourselves the very potent physical connection we share.”
“I do,” she said grimly, holding herself perfectly still under his touch. “I’ve told you my conditions.”
He brought his mouth to the shell of her ear. Felt the tremor that went through her. “Why? What is it you need to hide so badly from me? What hurt is buried so deep inside of you, you can’t let me near it?”
She pressed a hand to his chest and stepped back, a glitter in her eyes that said he’d struck a nerve. “How about we reverse that? How about we go upstairs right now, strip down and while we do it, you tell me why you run from everything? Why you hate family get-togethers with your mother so much? Why you and Harrison are always at each other’s throats? Why bicycling in the Alps is preferable to getting to know my family so you might not hate each other?”
His mouth curled. “You read too much into things, Diana. My mother is a cold fish of the highest order. Your parents hated me from the start, so why should I bother? And my brother and I are close again, thank you for asking.” He lifted a brow. “Does that cover it all?”
“Not even close,” she breathed. “So hating my parents means you won’t be there to support me?”
“Did you support me? About half of the gossip columns in New York predicted the demise of our marriage before it happened because you were never by my side. I had a wife who was a mirage.”
“You had a wife who was a resident. A resident, Coburn. The doctor who does everything and more because we aren’t senior enough to do anything but take it.” Her eyes glittered like black diamonds. “I was exhausted, I could hardly put a foot in front of one another, and you kept pushing, pushing me until I cracked. All you had to do was wait five years, five years, and things would have leveled out. But your ego, your desire for attention, couldn’t do it.”
He clenched his hand tight around his glass. “If you mean my ego couldn’t handle being put second to your job every single time, then yes, that’s true. You shut down when you work, Diana. You put every single bit of emotional energy you have into your patients, and when you get home, there’s nothing left for me.” He waved a hand at her. “Men are simple creatures. Throw us a bone every once in a while and we’re good. But you didn’t even have that for me.”
The color drained from her face. She looked pale, so very pale standing there in front of him. It made his guts twist. But this was a necessary conversation, long, long overdue.
“You’re right,” she said finally, “I didn’t. I expected you to understand the demands of my career. To let me put my future, our future, first until that tough period was over.”
“While I spent five years in a relationship with myself?” He shook his head. “Life is too short for me to sit by while you learn the meaning of balance, Diana. Begging for affection is not my style.”
“While I was begging for support. Begging for help getting through the five toughest years of my life.”
“And then what? You would have convinced Frank Moritz to give you that fellowship and it would have been another two years of hell while you obsessed about being perfect for him. When was it all going to end? You have this need to prove yourself I don’t understand.”
“Because you run away from your need to do the same.” She threw the words at him, bitter honesty ruling her now. “You hated that your father gave Grant Industries to Harrison to run. Instead of fighting for it, instead of proving to Harrison you should have equal footing, you pretended you didn’t care. Well, I care. I will not apologize for caring. I will not apologize for wanting some security in my life so when you decide you don’t want me anymore, I have something to fall back on.”
His mouth dropped open. “What the hell are you talking about?” She slammed her mouth shut. He closed the distance between them, capturing her jaw in his fingers. “Why would you say that? Give me one reason that would have ever led you to think I would have left you. One.”
Her gaze dropped from his. “It would have happened eventually. You were constantly disappointed in me. I could never give you what you wanted.”
His fingers tightened around her jaw as rage swelled inside him. “This is not about my disappointment in you. This is about your history with your parents. I worshipped the ground you walked on, Diana. I would have done anything to make our marriage work. But how was I going to do that when you were so busy staking out your territory so you could run the minute things got bad?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It was absolutely like that.” He let go of her jaw and stepped back before he truly lost it. “What else did I need to do to make you feel secure? What else, because it is beyond me?”
“You could have kept your hands off those women.” She yelled the words at him, the champagne in her glass tipping over the side in her fury. “You could have kept it in your pants long enough to convince me that I meant something to you, Coburn. That I wasn’t replaceable as easily as your next flavor of ice cream.”
His vision clouded over as he clenched his free hand at his side. “You walked out on me, remember? I tried to call you. I tried to make things right and you wouldn’t have me, so do not accuse me of being unfaithful.”
“Weeks later. After you’d already been with those women.”
Fury tunneled through him, flaying every centimeter of his skin. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. Because I can’t help but remember the timing. It was after you threw my attempts to talk in my face for about the fifth time that I got the message and satisfied my needs elsewhere. You made it clear you didn’t want me, so I took what I needed.”
She blinked hard. Stared at him for a long moment before she looked away. “I hope she was good, Coburn. I hope she satisfied your slavish devotion to your needs so you didn’t go without.”
“I would have preferred my marriage was intact, but I didn’t have that choice.”
Color leeched from her cheeks. She turned away from him, rested her forearms on the railing and drew in a deep breath. “Rehashing all of this isn’t going to help us move forward.”
“I beg to differ. I’m finding it highly illuminating. Who knows? If we put all our cards on the table, we might even find some clarity.”
“With a card counter like you?” She kept her gaze on the horizon, where the sun had sunk so low it was about to be swallowed up by the sea. Her skin looked too pale in the dying light, her shoulders set high in a defensive posture, her mouth a brittle line. As if a surge of wind might blow her away.
“We should eat,” he said roughly. “We can continue this conversation over dinner.”
“I’m not very hungry. Maybe I’ll just go straight to bed.”
“You will eat.” His harsh tone brought her head around. “There is no running from things you don’t like this week. We are facing them head-on.”
Something flickered in her eyes, but she didn’t argue. Likely because she knew she had to keep her strength up for the baby rather than any form of obedience. He pulled out a chair for her at the candlelit table Lucie had set on the deck, then settled into the one beside her. Her gaze flicked to the chair opposite her as if she’d rather he sat there, and it made him smile inside. Letting her get comfortable wasn’t part of his plan. Infiltrating her was.
“We need to buy a proper home,” he announced, filling their water glasses.
“I heard a business associate is selling his town house down the street from me. It actually has a yard. Maybe we should take a look at it.”
Her hand paused midway to her water glass. “I’m not living in Chelsea.”
“A fifteen-million-dollar townhome isn’t good enough for you?”
“Not if I’m bumping into your castoffs in the park.”
His mouth quirked. She’d be shocked at how few of those women he’d taken to bed. Everyone would.
“My discards won’t be strolling in the park at midday.”
“I’m not living in Chelsea, Coburn.”
“And I’m not living on the East Side. Maybe we split it down the middle and go somewhere neutral? The Upper West Side perhaps?”