“I guess you two settled your differences...”
Elissa blushed to the roots of her hair. King laughed delightedly and slid his arm around her. “It wasn’t anything serious,” he said, chuckling. “I’m sorry if we embarrassed you.”
Bobby shrugged. “Not me. But Bess is unusually sensitive, I guess.” He put down his pen. “She and I used to be like that, but she’s grown away from me. So many parties and teas and girls’ nights out—I hardly see her when I’m at home.”
“You might try spending more time there, now that you can afford to,” King suggested pointedly.
“I might. I think I’ll stroll out and join her.”
“We’ll make some coffee,” King said, and he led Elissa toward the kitchen.
“She was hurt,” Elissa said as she filled the coffeepot.
“I know.” His voice was deep and curt, and he was staring out the window at Bess watching the waves.
She plugged in the pot and went to him, touching his chest lightly where the shirt was unbuttoned. “And so are you,” she said gently. “I’m sorry. I feel as if I’ve failed you.”
“How?” he asked, smiling.
“I couldn’t give myself.”
“The hell you couldn’t.” He chuckled wryly, then linked his arms around her waist and looked down at her. “I stopped us. You didn’t. Not even when I mentioned pregnancy.”
She lowered her eyes to his chest. “I’m not so afraid of it.”
“Aren’t you?” He studied her. No, she didn’t seem to be. And he was shocked to learn that he wasn’t, either. That intrigued him. Shouldn’t he have been?
He turned to gaze out the window once more.
CHAPTER FIVE
“ARE YOU SURE Bess doesn’t want children?” Elissa asked abruptly, disrupting his disturbing thoughts.
He turned back toward her. “She says not,” he replied. Hands in his pockets, he leaned against the counter. “In the beginning, I think it was because she didn’t want to be tied down. Her mother had seven children.” He smiled sadly, remembering. “Bess was in the middle, but she did her share of looking after the little ones. She had a rough time of it, and so did the other kids, for that matter,” he murmured, remembering how Bess’s father drank and terrified the children. “Anyway, children don’t necessarily guarantee a good marriage. I’ve seen happy marriages destroyed by them.”
That sounded very private. “Have you?”
He frowned. “My mother often said that she and my father were happy enough until I came along and spoiled things,” he said quietly.
“What a horrid thing to say to your own child,” Elissa muttered, her face taut as she arranged cups and saucers and cream and sugar on a big silver tray.
“My mother was a devoted socialite,” he said. “She didn’t much care for children. If my stepfather hadn’t insisted, Bobby probably would never have been born. Odd how things turn out. She was a vivacious, beautiful woman with a quick mind. And now she’s a shell of her former self.”
“Do you visit her very often?”
“As often as I can,” he said. “She doesn’t know me, of course.”
She studied his hard face while the coffee finished perking, thinking how difficult his childhood must have been. She felt a burst of sympathy for the boy he had been.
“It wasn’t that rough,” he said after a minute, clearly reading her expression. “Besides, it was an incentive to show them all what I could do. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that revenge has produced a hell of a lot of successful men?”
“I suppose so. Is that why you’ve never married? Because of your own childhood?” she persisted gently.
He sighed. “Oh, Elissa,” he murmured, smiling. “You’re one of a kind, honey.”
“I just wondered,” she said.
He watched her pour coffee into the elegant floral china cups, thinking how sweetly domestic she seemed at that moment. She could cook like an angel, she looked exquisite in anything she put on, she had a gentle and loving nature, and physically she made the top of his head fly off with the uninhibitedness of her response to him.
“If I ever married, I suppose it would be you,” he said unexpectedly.
Her hand trembled, spilling coffee. She put the pot down with shaky fingers and reached for a dish towel to mop up the mess.
“That was unkind,” she told him.
“I meant it, in fact,” he said lazily, moving closer. “There’s not much hope of marriage in my life, with things the way they are. But I think I could enjoy living with you. You’re quiet and amusing, and I covet your body.”
He was openly leering at it, in fact, and she