Secrets in the Marriage Bed(2)

"Later, you said. Well, this is 'later.' You can stay in the house but  don't expect to move back into my life like nothing ever happened. As  far as I'm concerned, we're still separated."                       
       
           



       

He froze, shock acting like a narcotic in his blood. In the five years  they'd been married, Vicki had never spoken to him like that.  "Sweetheart-"

"No. No, Caleb. I'm not letting you push me into something I'm not ready for."

"This isn't giving us a chance," he argued. "We can hardly work on our  problems if I'm banished to this room with you holding the threat of  divorce over my head." Throwing his suit jacket on the bed, he began to  tear off his tie, his eyes on Vicki.

"Neither is your way." Her cheeks flushed with temper. "You want  everything to go back to what it was-as if you haven't been living in a  hotel for the past two months … I was miserable in our marriage. Is that  the wife you want back?"

Her words hurt. "You never said anything and then one day, you tell me  you want a divorce. How the hell was I supposed to know you weren't  happy? I'm not a mind reader." Giving up on the blasted tie, he shoved a  hand through his hair.

Vicki clenched her fists, creamy skin taut over delicate bones. "No,"  she said. "You're not. But you wouldn't have to be if you occasionally  took the time to listen to me instead of insisting on your way or no  way."

Caleb was getting good and mad. "You never wanted to make any decisions  so I made them." Since the day he'd married her, he'd done his best to  take care of her, protect her, and this was his thanks?

"Did you ever stop to think I might want more from life than to call you  lord and master? People grow and change, Caleb. Didn't you ever  consider that I might have?"

Her sharp question brought his growing temper to a screeching halt,  because the truth was, in his mind Vicki had remained the poised but  still young bride of nineteen he'd carried into his home five years ago.  Given the gap in their ages and life experiences, his taking charge of  their marriage had been inevitable.

That wasn't to say she'd been lacking her own strengths. In fact, she'd  been unnaturally mature for her age, completely willing and able to take  over her role as the wife of an ambitious young litigator determined to  become better than the best.

He wouldn't have been drawn to her if he hadn't glimpsed the resilient  will behind her shy smiles. But while he'd already walked a hard road by  the age of twenty-nine, she'd been untested by the world, cocooned in  an environment where everyone behaved according to accepted rules. Used  to making decisions, it hadn't occurred to him to act any other way with  his wife.

For the first time in a long while, he looked at her without being  blinded by memories of the girl she'd been. She was still slender, still  beautiful in that graceful way with her blue eyes and that silky hair  he loved to have brush over his skin. But her eyes no longer said what  they had in the past.

When they'd wed, she'd looked to him for everything. Now … now there was  distance in those blue depths, a world of secrets he was shut out of. To  his shock, he found he had no idea who she was behind her elegant  shell.

"No, I guess I didn't." He'd built his life around his self-confidence,  trusting his instincts when there'd been nothing and no one else to  trust. To admit he'd been wrong about something this important was a  blow.

Vicki's lips parted, her eyes going wide.

"But don't blame me for everything," he continued. They'd both been in  that broken marriage and if they were going to survive the rebuilding,  they had to be honest. "You know what I'm like. If you'd said something,  I would have tried to fix it. I don't like to see you hurting."

Which was why he'd never berated her for the one thing she couldn't give  him-her passion, her desire. That absence in their marriage had stung  like hell, and still did, but he was incapable of harming her, even to  assuage his own pain. From the moment he'd met her, all he'd wanted to  do was make her happy … make her smile.

Shoulders taut beneath the white linen of her simple shift dress, she  shook her head. "That's the point, Caleb. I don't want you to fix things  for me. I need … "

"What, Vicki? Tell me what you need." It was something he'd never asked.  The realization stunned him, made him question exactly how good a job  he'd done of loving her.

Even in bed, he'd taken the lead, confident in his ability to ensure her  physical pleasure though he couldn't make her want him with the fury  that he wanted her. But what if she'd needed something else, something  he hadn't known how to give? What if that was the reason she'd never  responded to him with the intensity he needed from her?                       
       
           



       

Her whole face softened. "I just need you to see and love me, not the  idea of the perfect wife you have in your head, or the woman Grandmother  tried to mold me into. Just me. Just Victoria."

It felt as if she'd struck him. "I never tried to change you."

"No, Caleb. You never even saw me at all." And that had hurt more than  anything. Because no matter what she said and did, she loved Caleb  Callaghan with every breath in her body. Loved his laugh, his  intelligence, his stubbornness and even his temper.

But it wasn't enough. Love like that could slowly destroy a person from  the inside out if it wasn't returned. And despite what Caleb believed,  she knew it wasn't. To her husband she was as fragile as an exotic  bloom, someone who always had to be protected, even if that meant she  had to be shielded from the full power of his own feelings.

Like now. His fists were clenched, his jaw taut but he kept himself  under control. "If I didn't see you, then who the hell did I spend five  years with? A ghost?"

The sarcastic comment fell too close to the mark. "Maybe you did."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

How did she tell him something she'd barely started to understand herself? "Who was I in that marriage, Caleb?"

"My wife." His hazel eyes were clouded with a kind of pain she'd never before seen. "Wasn't that enough?"

"Caleb Callaghan's wife," she said, swallowing the knot of emotion in her throat. "But was I really even that?"

He scowled. "What kind of question is that? Of course you were my wife.  You still are. And if you'd get over this separate-bedrooms crap, we  could start working on making things right."

If I'm your wife, she wanted to scream, then why did you do that with  Miranda? But that wasn't something she was strong enough to face  yet-four months of distance from the event hadn't even formed a scab on  the wound. "This is not crap, Caleb. This is real, so start paying  attention-for once in your life, pay attention to your marriage!"

Swiveling on her heel, she walked out of the room. From behind her came  the harsh sounds of Caleb swearing and throwing something at the wall,  but he didn't follow her. Relieved, she entered her own room, knowing  she was close to an emotional meltdown. It was one thing to coach  herself on how to handle Caleb when it was only hypothetical, and quite  another to be faced with the full force of his personality.

She'd spent her marriage unable to say what needed to be said because  she'd been too weak to stand up to the force of nature that was Caleb  Callaghan. Having him home scared her-what if she crumpled again, losing  everything she'd gained in the months they'd been apart, months in  which she'd made herself take a critical look at her life?

What she'd seen hadn't been pretty. But at least she was facing her  mistakes now, facing the mess of their marriage. Getting Caleb to do the  same would be a major battle, but she'd made a beginning two months ago  when she'd gambled everything on a throw of the dice and asked him for a  divorce.

It had been a move born of desperation and staked on Caleb's stubborn  refusal to admit defeat in any arena. She'd wanted to shake him out of  his complacency, to make him see that the life they'd been living wasn't  a life at all, merely an existence. Despite her hurt over what he'd  done with Miranda during that business trip to Wellington, she hadn't  wanted to give up on the dream that had first brought them together.

But not even for that dream had she been willing to continue hiding  behind the perfect facade of their fractured marriage. So she'd thrown  the dice. And waited for Caleb to pick them up.

He hadn't let her down. Though he'd moved out, he'd made sure he had  contact with her almost every day. Now, the unexpected gift of their  baby had given them more time, time enough for Caleb to get to know her,  to begin to understand the woman she'd always been beneath the brittle  shell of breeding and culture.