Threads of Suspicion(50)
“I do it because it’s fun. I’m good at numbers, love to negotiate, bring people together, overcome obstacles. When good deals are struck, people prosper, lives improve. It helps people when a good man makes good deals. That’s a role I was designed to play. And maybe play is the operative word here. But it’s not the end of the world. I need a wife who knows that and reflects that truth to me. It gives me balance.” He smiled as he ran a hand down her arm. “You give me balance.
“All too often people in the role I fill are warped into thinking the money, the power, and the prestige are the important things, and that’s all they can see. You, on the other hand, are incapable of getting blinded by the success, the wealth. You’ll call it foolishness when it goes to excess, and laugh at the false pressure of it. You’ll help me find ways to use it to invest in others. I want someone like you in my life, Evie. I want you in my life. You’re the balance to this world I live in. I’m wise enough to deeply desire that. Just like in some other ways I think I’m the balance you need for the often dark world you live in. You need me too. It’s okay to build a marriage there.”
She understood why he was so far ahead of her, was comfortable with the desire to be married. He’d figured out what he wanted, needed, and he loved her. She just wished she was at the same place he was. “Rob, what if I’m just not ready to step into marriage? What then?”
“Why the doubts?”
She tried to find the words. “Maybe I’m too young. I know, I’m thirty-six, it isn’t a rational feeling. But as much as I wonder if it should be you and I, it’s that sensation that I’m not ready, that I need a few more years to grow up. ‘Banker’s wife’ is a title, a role that doesn’t sound . . . well, possible to me.
“I can step down from the State Police, take a local job, be a detective in a local precinct. I can figure out how to coordinate life between your job and mine. I can even envision kids one day. What I can’t see is how to step from what I have now over to that.” She shook her head. “But the truth is I really don’t know why I’m hesitating. If my feelings for you need more time to develop or I just need to let go of the fact I’m single and let the word couple now define who I am. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just scared.” She leaned her head against the back of the couch, wishing she knew her own heart better.
Rob didn’t immediately answer, taking time to absorb the words and finally nodding. “I think part of it is you don’t see yourself flourishing in that new picture, Evie. You’re in it, making it work, but it’s not somewhere you develop and bloom in fresh ways. That’s what I hear in your words. It’s not adding ‘more and better’ to you, just taking away some of what you are right now.”
She hated to think that maybe he was right. “You’d make a wonderful husband, Rob. I know my life would be blessed being with you. I also know I’m damaging things between us by not being able to say yes. I deeply regret that. I just can’t put into words why I’m hesitating. A great guy wants to propose and I’m not saying yes, yes!? It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know what else to say except I need more time to figure out what is going on in me.”
“Evie, you trust me—easier than you can say the words I love you. Do you wonder why that is? Maybe I haven’t sparked something in you you’re hoping to find. Or maybe what you’re hoping for doesn’t exist. If it does, it’s possible I’m never going to be the guy who can click with that. I can answer the question why I want you in my life. I love you, Evie. I would treasure having you with me for the next fifty years. I’d enjoy building a home and family with you. But you need to be able to answer why you want me in your life,” he continued. “I’m a safe place in the storm, a refuge away from the life-and-death reality of your work. I’m a good guy, a good provider and someone to relax with. I’m good company who likes you being around. All that is a solid foundation. What’s the rest of it, Evie? That’s been enough for an exclusive relationship. But the rest of it? Am I the guy you can’t live without?”
“Right now you are,” she whispered. “I lose you, Rob, I lose the safest person I’ve ever known.”
He held out his hand, waited for her to grasp it. “You are safe with me, Evie. And if what you really need is to acknowledge that your heart isn’t yet ready for marriage, you should feel safe enough to say that to me. We’ll take a break. A year, two years, let time help sort this out. If you can take this step, I want to marry you. If it’s not going to happen—at least not now, is my earnest hope—then let’s step back. I don’t want to damage something I value more than I can say by pressuring you, but we can’t simply stay where we are. Let’s either go forward together or step back together.”