Page 88 of Bound Enemies
I want it, yes. But I can’t offer the same in return. I can’t and I won’t, and that’s just something she’ll have to accept.
‘I’m not an easy man,’ I say after a moment, trying to find the language I need to explain. ‘I’m difficult. I have a short fuse, I’m impatient, I’m arrogant. I prefer facts to feelings, and I prefer reality over any kind of fantasy.’
The tension around her mouth relaxes. ‘I mean, that isn’t news to me,’ she says drily. ‘Especially the arrogant part.’
‘Beatrix,’ I warn, because I can’t treat this conversation lightly. ‘Listen. You shouldn’t trust me, and I don’t know why you would. I haven’t given you any reason to.’
But she only gives me one of her beautiful, aching smiles. ‘Perhaps I don’t need a reason,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I just wanted to make a leap of faith.’
‘Beatrix—’
‘Santiago,’ she interrupts. ‘You feel very deeply about a great many things, I can see that. And I think you’ll feel very deeply about our child too. That’s what I want to put my trust in. That depth of feeling.’ She pauses. ‘Also, who said you were difficult?’
That at least is an easy question to answer. ‘It was made clear to me in no uncertain terms as I was growing up.’
‘So…what? You just accepted it?’
I let out a breath and give her some more truth. ‘I…tried to be different. Tried to be more…acceptable, shall we say? But nothing I did made any discernible difference. All I can be is myself, and if that’s not good enough, then that’s too bad, since it’s all I can be.’
She is silent a long moment, studying me. Then she says, ‘You don’t need to be different. You’re a complicated, fascinating man, and I like that a lot.’
Again there’s a shifting in my chest, a tightness. She sees me and my many, many flaws and she thinks they’re interesting. ThatI’minteresting. Yet as much as I want to believe her, I know the truth.
The evidence of caring that she’s trusting in so much isn’t there. Whatever care I once felt, it’s gone now. The anger is merely the remains, and once that’s burned away, nothing will be left.
Except this trust of hers is so fragile and delicate. It’s a blown-glass rose she’s giving me, the way she gave that white rose to a stranger, and it has to be handled with care, not smashed needlessly. I can’t throw it back in her face. She sees in me the ghost of someone long gone, but I like that she sees it. It makes me feel as if I’m a better man than the man I’ve chosen to become. A less rigid, less difficult, kinder man.
I could try to be that man for her. I can do it. I’ve been trying all my life to be that man after all, and for her I could try a little harder.
So, I ignore my anger and slowly reach across the space between us, taking her hand and turning it over to find her palm. Then I bend and press a kiss there, like a promise. ‘So,’ I say, lifting my head and meeting her gaze, ‘in that case, I want you to live here with me, sleep with me in my bed. My house is your house, and I will provide for you financially. This is your home. This is the place where you belong. You’ll be my wife in every way.’
Her expression softens and there’s a gleam in her eyes that looks like tears, though they’re gone before I can say for sure. She smiles, though, and it’s so beautiful I want to lock it away and keep it all to myself. ‘I’d like that,’ she says, her voice husky. ‘I’d like that a lot. I’m even thinking that I’d also like to go back to school. Perhaps even to university. I’d like to have a career of my own doing something that I love, and not just out of necessity.’
I slide my fingers through hers, holding on to her hand. She’s so lovely sitting there with her golden hair flowing down over her shoulders. The top few buttons of my shirt are undone and I can see the shadowed place between her luscious breasts. I want to undo the buttons and press my mouth there.
But she placed her trust in me, and I want to honour that. Sex would be an easy way to give her what she wants, but if I’m going to try to be the man she wants, I need to make a different decision. I need to have the conversation.
‘A career?’ I ask. ‘What sort of things are you interested in?’
‘I…don’t really know.’ Colour tinges her cheeks as if she’s embarrassed. ‘I wasn’t very good at school. The foster home I was in at the time, the parents didn’t care whether I did my homework or not, or whether I worked hard. So I didn’t care either. I was just marking time until I was old enough to leave school and get out of the foster system.’
I’ve already thought she was strong and determined, and it’s being reinforced for me now as I sit here, listening to her tell me about where she came from. And I find I don’t like that no one cared about her or what she did. It feels like an insult. A travesty. She’s beautiful and passionate, and stubborn. She’s interesting, a fascinating subject that I keep discovering new things about, and it’s wrong she has no one. So right then and there, despite knowing that it’s dangerous to get any closer to her than I am already, I decide that she will have me.
I’m her husband. She’s the mother of my child, therefore she’s my responsibility, and, just as I would never walk away from my child, I won’t walk away from her either. Not now.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘you’re not in the foster system now, and I care. If you want to go back to school or university, then I’ll support you fully.’ I pause, holding her gaze, letting her know I’m genuine in this. ‘I want you to be happy, Bea.’
She tilts her head, looking at me. ‘You do?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘You deserve to be.’
Her colour deepens, her eyes shining as if I’ve given her a precious gift.
Careful.
It’s true, this is venturing onto shaky ground. Her putting her trust in me is one thing, but her wanting something from me emotionally that I won’t ever be able to give her is quite another. Because, while she is my responsibility, anything deeper will never be a part of this, not ever.
‘But you have to know,’ I go on, ‘that I can’t give you anything more than what I’m giving you now. Emotionally, I mean. Love, for example, can never be part of this marriage.’
