“No, of course not, but—”
“And I’ll not communicate that by hiding who you are to me.”
That was nice, so nice.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t moving too fast.
“That’s sweet, honey, but—”
“And I’ll not have it communicated to my children…in any way…that the act of love between two agreeable adults is something to hide because it’s shameful.”
“Right, I get that, sweetheart. I totally do. But—”
“If you get it, then you move in tomorrow,” he declared.
“Listen—”
“Tomorrow, Madeleine,” he decreed.
Unfortunately, he was cutting me off and being arrogant and bossy all at the same time and this was serving to piss me off.
“Okay,” I began, “you know your children better than me, obviously, so let’s just say this is moving too fast for me.”
“I do not understand how,” he returned.
“Apollo,” with effort, I controlled the snap in my voice, “I haven’t had the chance to figure out what I’m going to do with my life, what with war breaking out and everything.”
“And this requires you being in the dower house?”
“It requires time to think.” When he opened his mouth, I hastened to add, “Alone time.”
“Maddie, the children are with their tutors all day and I’m equally busy. You’ll have plenty of alone time.”
“You don’t understand,” I pointed out the obvious.
“No, I do not,” he agreed to the obvious. “What I do understand is that whatever you’re going to do with your life, you’ll be doing it as my wife, living with me and my children in this bloody house. So you’re very correct. I don’t understand why you need to be in a home ten minutes away to figure that out delaying the inevitable, that being moving in here.”
I tried to go gentle when I stated, “It isn’t the inevitable. None of that has been decided, Apollo.”
I didn’t go gently enough.
I knew this when his eyes blanked, his face turned to stone and he asked, “And your choices are vast?”
Oh boy.
Now I was getting mad.
“Apollo—”
“So vast, it requires great blocks of alone time to consider all your options?”
“What I’m saying is—”
“And those options include options that are better than what I give to you and could give to you”—he swept out an arm then leaned into me— “if you’d bloody move in.”
“You don’t understand me—” I started but didn’t finish.
“No, I don’t,” he clipped. “We’ve established that.”