Once Touched, Never Forgotten - By Natasha Tate Page 0,57
tumbling from her mouth.
“Didn’t we already discuss this?” He pushed upright and exhaled noisily. “Love destroys people, Colette. It makes them vulnerable and weak and rash. I want no part of it.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I did. You just refuse to hear my answer. I want you for you, Colette. I want you because you’re smart. You work hard. You’re tough. You’re beautiful. You make me laugh and you make me feel like a better person than I am. And, yes, you’re an incredible lover and an amazing mother to our child. Can’t that be enough?”
No.
“I thought you were hungry,” he said, abandoning her and heading toward the table. “And our lunch is getting cold.”
Three days later, a gentle breeze rode the Mediterranean air, bringing the scent of the sea and lending a welcome coolness to the evening. But Stephen had difficulty appreciating the temperature or the view. As beautiful as the setting was, he couldn’t enjoy it, and it made frustrated anger percolate low in his gut. He felt a pathetic affinity with the sea, sucked by a relentless tide toward a shore he’d been avoiding his whole life.
What was it about women and their irrational need for love? He’d thought Colette was different, that she’d understand and respect his desire to keep love out of the mix. She belonged to him, he belonged to her, and they’d created a beautiful, amazing daughter together. They pleasured each other’s bodies, laughed together and respected each other. Why couldn’t she just accept it as enough?
The answer beat within his chest like a death knell.
Because, you foolish sot, she wants a relationship built on love.
Love he was incapable of giving her.
And the hell of it was he felt a futile, hopeless urge to try anyway. Catapulted back into the wretched insecurity of his youth, he knew that, no matter how hard he tried, he’d never measure up. The truth ate at him like a cancer. He would never be enough for Colette. He knew it. He was inadequate in some essential way, and it was only a matter of time before Colette figured it out and left him.
And, even though she hadn’t brought up the topic of love again, things hadn’t returned to normal. She still joined him in his bed as often as he wished, but her walls seemed to have grown thicker. If he didn’t instigate a conversation she was silent as a tomb. She still smiled when he said amusing things, she never denied him her company when he wanted it, and she shared their daughter and her care without reservation. But he could sense her rising discontent. She wasn’t happy, and knowing that she never could be in a marriage with him made him angry, panicked and afraid.
He didn’t like the feeling at all.
Irritated, he felt desperation eat away at his gut and simmer in his veins. It wasn’t fair. It made him want to yell or fight or hurl curses at the sky.
He didn’t, of course. To do so would have been too much like his father, a ruined wreck of a man who hadn’t been able to function without his wife. So instead Stephen stuffed the anger down deep and remained alone at the small, linen-draped table long after their butler had cleared away their final honeymoon supper.
As far as meals had gone, it had been their most uncomfortable yet. They’d picked at their food in silence, barely looking at each other and ignoring the undercurrents of tension that seemed to mount with each passing day. When Colette had finished and gone in to bathe Emma and tuck her into bed, Stephen hadn’t followed.
An hour later he heard Colette’s soft gasp behind him as she exited the bathroom after her shower. He’d moved to their suite’s wide, wingback chair, the television remote in his hand and the volume set to low. He knew without turning that she hadn’t expected him to be there, and he knew with the same degree of certainty that if he didn’t tell her to stay she’d find some excuse to leave him alone in their room.
He waited until he heard the telltale click of the door latch signaling her retreat before he cursed beneath his breath and twisted to catch her before she escaped. “Colette?” he called.
She froze with the door halfway open and then slowly turned to face him, her eyes avoiding his and a pretty blush rising to stain her freckled chest. Scrubbed clean, her skin pink from her