“Coward? You?” He scoffed at the idea. “You wanted everything to be perfect even if it required you to make the sacrifices.”
Tina crossed her arms. “I’m not a martyr.”
“You’re too independent,” he complained with a growl. “You refuse to ask for help.”
“I’m working on that.” She took a step back and he followed.
“Why don’t you audition for one of my movies?” Dev asked. Her insistence on avoiding Arjun Entertainment was like a thorn in his skin.
“No! You still don’t get it, Dev.” She thrust her hands in her short hair and gave a harsh sigh. “Everyone wants something from you. If they don’t ask for it, you’ll offer something. Anything. It’s how you work a relationship.”
Dev narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like where this conversation was going. “What are you talking about?”
“You think you have to do something to earn your way into people’s hearts,” she said as she gestured wildly with her hands. “You have to be number one in the box office to win approval from your parents. You have to pay everything to gain acceptance with my mother.”
Was this how Tina saw him? That he had to buy his way to a person’s heart? “I have money and I want to help out.”
“At first I thought it was your way of maintaining control in a relationship. Now I realize that you can’t just give yourself. You don’t think you’re enough.”
He didn’t like this. He jutted out his chin as the dark emotions started to swirl in his chest. “That’s not true.”
“And you are just as reluctant to ask for help as I am.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Do you realize that asking me to stay for two months was the only time you asked for my assistance in anything?”
“You were pregnant and then you were grieving.” He had gone out of his way to keep the world at bay. He didn’t want her to worry about anything.
“I still wanted to look after you. You were my husband.”
“I am your husband.”
“I ask for your advice all the time,” she continued as if he hadn’t made that declaration. “But I didn’t want you to think I married you because you could help my career. I wanted you, not what you could do for me.”
“You didn’t need to prove anything,” he said. “I know why you married me.”
Tina’s cheeks went red. “You do?”
“You didn’t want to be a single mother.”
Tina blinked and gave a slight shake of her head. “Dev, I didn’t marry you just because I was having your baby.”
Dev clenched his teeth as the curiosity swelled inside him. Why had she married him? He wanted to know but he was afraid the reason no longer applied. What would it take for her to stay married?
“This is the problem with attending weddings,” Tina said as she cast a look at the entrance. “It makes you think about your own. Your marriage. What you would have done differently.”
“You know what I would have done differently?” he asked gruffly.