His gaze met hers, the shame unmistakable before he could mask it. ‘Why does it matter now?’ he said, the weariness in his tone giving her pause. But she steeled herself against the desire to let him off the hook again. To allow the pain he had suffered as a child take precedence over the pain he had caused her. They had both suffered. Both lost so much. But she wasn’t the one who had allowed that pain to destroy what they might have built together.
‘It matters to me, Santiago.’
Admiration flared in his eyes and echoed in her heart, but then a harsh laugh broke from his lips.
‘You drive a hard bargain, Señora De Montoya. And I mean that literally,’ he said.
Her cheeks heated. But she forced her gaze to remain fixed on his face. She knew a distraction technique when she saw one now… Hadn’t he always used sex to stop her getting too close? And like a fool she’d let him. But she wasn’t going to fall for that again. No matter how much it cost her.
‘I’ve kept my end of this bargain, Santiago,’ she said flatly. ‘You can’t change the terms of our agreement just because you’re horny.’
But as she turned to leave himagain, he snagged her wrist and held on.
‘I want my wife, Cerys. Not just a woman to warm my bed. There is a difference.’
‘But I’m not your wife, not really,’ she replied, her pulse thundering under his thumb, but her gaze bold and direct. ‘This is a temporary marriage in name only, until the scandal has died down again. And then we’ll go our separate ways. That’s what you wanted.’
‘And if I have changed my mind?’ he countered.
‘You don’t get to change your mind, Santiago,’ she said, her voice breaking.
The ache in her belly became sharp and jagged, ripping through her defences all over again. But she pushed against the desperate yearning, the longing to have him see her, to have him cherish her again. Because she knew now that he never had, not really. Or he would never have turned on her the way he had.
‘If you think I’m going to sleep with a man who hates me you’re wrong,’ she murmured.
‘It is not you I hate…’ The words burst out. ‘It isthemI hate…’
He tugged her closer until he could rest his forehead on hers.
‘I’m sorry I ever made you believe that, Cerys,’ he murmured, his voice raw.
She could feel the tremors racking his body and knew that finally some of the barriers he had erected around his heart were breaking down. But while she couldn’t seem to step away from him again, nor could she bring herself to accept his apology.
‘Telling me you’re sorry is not enough, Santiago,’ she whispered.
‘Tell me what I must do to fix this and I will,’ he said.
She dragged herself back, to stare into his eyes. Seeing the torment, seeing the regret he couldn’t hide any more was a start. But she still needed answers. So many answers.
‘Then tell me why…’ she murmured. ‘Why you pushed me away?’
* * *
Santiago let out a deep sigh, finally forced to admit to himself what had kept him awake these last three nights…
Not the loss of her body, but the loss of her.
‘Reading your mother’s journal… It brought back so many demons from that night, when I found my mother. Demons I thought I had conquered, but then I realised I never had. Because wanting you made me feel defenceless, like that boy again. It was easier to pretend what we had was a lie than to accept that I needed you so much.’
Cerys had come into his life and made it richer, sweeter, lighter. And he wanted that back more than anything. It had never been a mistake to ask her to marry him. He could see that now so clearly.
‘I am sorry I made this marriage about the past. I don’twantto live there any more. We can make this what it was always meant to be. It doesn’t matter to me that you are her daughter.’ He’d always believed she was vulnerable, that she needed his protection, especially when she had struggled to remember her own identity. Why had he not realised until this moment that she needed his protection now more than ever? She had no one. If they divorced, she would be alone, left to handle the press without his support.
‘What matters now is that you are my wife.’ The guilt dropped into his gut like a stone. Why hadn’t he acknowledged too that she had been damaged as well by that cursed affair? She’d lost her mother, just as he had. Why could their shared loss not bond them tighter together? Make them stronger.
All he wanted was to get back what they’d had before he’d read that damn journal.
‘You still need a family…’ he said. ‘A home. And I can still give you that.’