The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,82
But he had to do it. Had to cut in order to heal. “I came here to tell you something that you already know. The same way I know you feel the same. I love you.”
She sucked in a harsh breath and he saw her struggling to find words. He found himself glad she couldn’t find them yet, because he knew they would be denials. She couldn’t accept this, not until he showed her that there was a way.
“God, I love you to my bones, through my blood.” He almost laughed with how true it was. How powerful. “I love all the curves and angles of you, all the courage and weaknesses. Now and forever, today and tomorrow, and there is nothing that will ever change that. Trust me, I have been trying to find a way.” He reached for her, but didn’t grab her. He just let his fingers trace hers gently. “I love you, Phillipa.”
Phillipa’s mouth dropped open and she heard the little sob that escaped her lips. She felt frozen as she stood there, held steady in his regard, in the absolutely certainty of his expression.
She wanted to leap into the arms she knew would be waiting for her. She wanted to throw caution to the wind and accept this beautiful thing she wanted so desperately. But nothing had changed since the last time they made love. Nothing had become better or easier. The barriers still existed and if he could not be strong enough to see them, she had to be.
“You are overwrought thanks to the events of tonight,” she said, her tone dull because she couldn’t make it anything but when she was denying what her heart desired most. “It has made you forget yourself and all you would lose by loving me.”
He arched a brow. “You think you know me so well.”
“You know I do.”
He smiled, and it seemed so certain that she felt the painful pang of hope. “Well, that part is true even if nothing else you’ve said is.”
“Everything I’ve said is true,” she whispered. “And we’ve discussed this—”
“Yes. Over and over. Very rationally. But love is not rational. I am mad with it. I cannot leave here without having you know it.”
“Lovers,” she gasped. “We’ll be lovers.”
“No.” He shook his head firmly. “I want to be your husband. I want to make my life with you, publicly and freely. I want us to raise Kenley as a family, I want our own children to fill our house. I want to love them all equally, as my brother and I weren’t. I want you in my arms each night and in my heart every day.”
She was wavering. Breaking. He must have known it because he was relentless as he continued, “And I didn’t tell you that I loved you because of the threat we faced tonight. Far from it. I rode over here tonight, not having any idea that Rosie would be here.”
She shifted. There was no denying that. She had said as much herself a moment before. “And what caused this great change then, if not the fright we both had?”
“It isn’t a change,” he said. “It isn’t new or different. I’ve loved you for weeks. I’ve never said it because I’ve been a coward, stuck thinking I had to row my way out of this storm in only one direction.” He smiled. “But tonight I realized, quite suddenly thanks to an intruding and brilliant friend, that there was another way.”
She blinked. He sounded so certain, and in that moment she wanted to believe him, even though she knew it wasn’t true.
“What other way?” she whispered. “What can erase all the problems being together would solve? What can make it a life free of judgment and pain?”
He drew back a fraction. “Nothing. Even if there were no impediments to our life together, it wouldn’t guarantee a life free of pain. Pain is part of the experience. I carry yours, you carry mine, it makes it better, it makes it bearable.”
“It will make it worse,” she said, “Especially for you. And perhaps you won’t grow to hate me for that, but what if I hate myself?”
“In Bath, we had challenges to face,” he said. “I locked you out of the work I did, trying to uncover all of Erasmus’s bad deeds and I suffered for it. I made myself alone and it was lonely. The moments when I turned to you, when I accepted your pain and shared mine, that was when