Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong - By Nikki Logan Page 0,47
stay if it makes you feel bad about yourself?’
He shrugged. ‘Because I love it. I want to be one of those legends.’
‘Why? What is it you love so much about it?’
‘Shipwrecks are...’ He frowned. ‘They have so much potential. They lie so quietly on the sea floor, waiting for us to find them.’
‘There are lots of discoveries waiting to be made. Why sunken ships?’
‘Because they’re eternal. Finding them ensures they endure in history. There’s so little in this world that lasts.’
‘Like?’
He shrugged. ‘Friends. Women.’
‘Love?’
‘Definitely love.’
His parents had so much to answer for. How early in life was Rob looking for things that might last? ‘There’s more. More than that.’
‘I want to make a difference and discover mysteries and have rookie lab-rats look at me like the sun shines from my research.’ His fists tightened. ‘I’m great at what I do for my father’s firm but I feel great in the lab. In the water. Diving for wrecks.’
‘Then that’s where you’ll find the right kind of woman.’
Rob laughed. ‘Underwater?’
‘Where your passion lies.’
His eyes darkened and Honor’s breath came faster.
‘What makes you think I’m looking for Ms Right?’ he said.
‘We all search for our perfect fit.’
‘Are you, Honor?’
Her eyes widened. ‘I was. Once.’
‘But not now?’ She shook her head. Rob’s gaze grew intense. ‘He must have been some man.’
Honor’s blinking eyes felt heavy. It had to be her weariness. It had nothing to do with the hypnotic stroke of Rob’s toe against her leg. A deep pain bubbled up and spilled over in the tightness of her voice. ‘They were my family. It’s hard to imagine anything more perfect.’
Honor frowned at her own words. Perfect? No. Her marriage had been far from that.
‘That’s a big call. What if another Mr Right comes along? Or do you believe there can only be one?’
Did she believe that? Honor remembered having long conversations about true love as a girl, tangled up with her mother in an oversized hammock under a giant paperbark. Tanya had certainly believed it; she’d pined for her lost love all of Honor’s life. And she’d been alone just as long.
Was her love for Nate perfect? It was deep. It was warm and familiar and safe. Nate had anchored her to the earth more than sending her soaring in the heavens. He’d never wrapped his arms around her and rolled her in the shallows. He’d never sent her blood thrumming just by touching her.
Her throat tightened. ‘Yes. I think there’s only one perfect fit for everyone.’
Rob nodded. Pushed. ‘What if he wasn’t it?’
Rage oozed up just below the surface. Honor swallowed it back. ‘He was. I married him.’ She said it with a force that suggested those two were even remotely connected.
‘What if you hadn’t met the most perfect fit for you yet?’
‘What are you doing—auditioning? He was.’ Her defensiveness startled even her. ‘You’re as bad as my mother.’
‘She didn’t approve?’
Tanya’s concerned words shortly after Justin had been born came back to her now. About Nate being right for her because he’d given her a son and because he gave her the love her father had never been around to give. And whether that was enough. Honor had cried after her mother left for what that suggested about her. For what that suggested about Nate. But mostly because a deep part of her had feared her mother’s criticism might have been on the money. Nate had been older. He’d worn cardigans to his academic job. He’d frowned when he found her dancing barefoot in cut wet grass. She’d talked herself into believing that her mother was simply angry that she didn’t have her little Mini-Me to tie-dye fabric and buy hippy music with any more. It had been easier to hurt her mother than to hurt herself.
Because what if she was right...?
‘Nate worshipped every breath I took.’ And the son that they created together.
‘I can believe it. Doesn’t mean he was the right man for you.’
The words were gentle. And logical. And nothing she hadn’t wondered deep down since her mother first planted the seed.
‘I think I would know,’ she said now, rather too sharply.
‘How many men had you slept with before him?’
Shock made her jaw drop. ‘That’s none of your business.’
‘I’ll take that as a zero.’
‘Why do you measure everything in terms of sex? What about intellectual compatibility? Emotional intelligence? Social fit?’ Connecting with someone alone on an island was a world away from staying connected with them once you got back to a life of parties and dinners with strangers.
His