It's Never too Late - By Tara Taylor Quinn Page 0,64
they’d only be moments, she’d said so herself. She couldn’t promise anything more than the moment.
And he couldn’t give her anything more.
“I’m sorry.”
He swung around. “For what?”
Shrugging, she motioned toward his empty chair. “Coming on to you like that. I shouldn’t have... I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never behaved like that before.”
With his hands in his pockets holding the fabric of his shorts away from his erection, Mark walked out into the yard and then turned to face her. “Don’t be sorry,” he said, confusion and disappointment giving the words more passion than he’d intended. “Ever. For that,” he added. “That was the best... It was a kiss I’ll never forget.”
“But you’re going to marry Ella, aren’t you?”
He had to tell her about the baby. He was an honest man. And had never known honor to cost so much.
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t. Not unless you love her.”
“You know how I feel about love.”
“Right, you don’t believe in it.”
“In the beginning people mistake lust for love. Kind of like the excitement and thrill of getting a new big-screen TV.” He sounded like a moron. “And then the newness wears off and all that’s left is disillusionment and disappointment. It’s far better to be realistic. To look life head-on, see what’s really there, and make the best of it.”
“I don’t agree.”
He couldn’t help that. You couldn’t change what a lifetime of living had taught you.
“Love is something unseen. Something that exists whether you acknowledge it or not. Whether you welcome it or not.” She sounded pretty sure of herself.
“You know this, how?”
“There’s no proof, Mark. Unless you look at people, at their actions, their choices. Love is evident in them.”
“I meant, personally. You live alone. By your own admission, you’ve never been in a serious relationship. So how do you know?” Her own parents certainly had not been a good example of love.
“I loved Gran. My mother loved my father. And I know that love is the power that holds people together after the newness wears off. It’s the need to be together no matter what comes your way. It’s growing and changing together through life’s challenges. Love is what lets a man look at his wife naked after twenty years of marriage and still find her beautiful. It’s what lets an old woman look at her wrinkled and hunched husband and still want only him right by her side.”
She lived alone. Always had. “How do you know?” She sounded like a dreamer. And he saw no evidence in her life to prove any different.
“I just do.”
“So you think that if I don’t feel this love for Ella I shouldn’t marry her even though I gave her my word I wouldn’t desert her?”
“I think that if you don’t love her, it’s not fair to her or to yourself to marry her. Now is the time to acknowledge that the relationship doesn’t offer you what you need—not after you’re married.”
“How do you know it wouldn’t offer me what I need?” He’d been with Ella a lot longer than he’d known Addy. Ella knew Mark Heber. And until he’d kidded himself that he could suddenly have a brand-new life, until he’d let Nonnie convince him that they could be something they weren’t, he’d been completely content to marry Ella.
Addy joined him on the grass, placing herself directly in front of him until their noses were almost touching. “I know because of what just happened over there,” she said. He couldn’t look back at the patio. “If Ella had what it will take to keep you faithful to her for the rest of your lives, then you wouldn’t have been able to respond to me like that.”
“If I don’t remain faithful, that is my fault, not the fault of the woman I’m with. It’s a product of my own character. Something lacking within me. And I can assure you, when I marry, I will be faithful.”
“I don’t doubt that, and to an extent it’s a reflection of who you are. But don’t you see, Mark? If you marry Ella knowing that you don’t want to—and you’ve already admitted you don’t want to—then, in essence, you’re lying to her. If it’s any marriage at all, at some point she’s going to sense that she doesn’t do it for you.”
I won’t be good enough for you anymore. Ella’s words from that night at the lake came back to him. He’d denied her claim at the time. And he’d been certain he knew what