Web of Deception - By Nina Blake Page 0,41
lot of people tell each other those things and then they get divorced. I’m different. I don’t want to lie to you in the first place.”
“No, you just want to have me while I’m young. While I’m still good for some hot sex. While I’m still in my prime childbearing years. Then when you’re sick of me, you’ll move on to someone else.”
He slid his hand across her thigh. She flinched and he pulled back.
“I want to look after you,” he said. “I don’t want to lie to you.”
“Let’s get this clear. You don’t want to marry me.” His expression remained unchanged so she added, “You just want me to have your children.”
Daniel pleaded with his hands. “I want children and I want you. Is that so bad?”
“You want to use me.”
“You’re stuck on this marriage thing. That’s it, isn’t it? I don’t want to marry you so you’ve jumped to the conclusion that I’m using you. Kate, marriage isn’t the only way. Maybe it’s not the honest way.”
“Not for you because you don’t believe in it.”
“What works for other people won’t necessarily work for me. And it doesn’t work so well for most of them either but people convince themselves they did the right thing because they got married.”
Kate couldn’t believe it had come to this, couldn’t believe they were having this argument.
She hadn’t seen it coming. She thought about Daniel’s hints about how she was different, about how she wanted to do things her way. It all started to make sense. She just hadn’t seen where it was headed at the time.
She could have stayed with him for weeks, months, perhaps even years until the passion faded. His, that is, because she knew her feelings weren’t going to disappear. Damn it, she’d have stayed with him on his terms because that was the only way she could have him.
But she couldn’t stay with him after this…insult. She wasn’t a baby machine. She was a human being with goals and desires of her own. Not to mention feelings. Daniel didn’t seem to be taking that into account. He thought he could manipulate her into doing whatever he wanted.
And he nearly had.
She’d been willing to put her life on hold for her passion, for a man. She’d been ready to put aside her own aims in life to fritter away some time with him, knowing there would be no substance behind the relationship, knowing he wasn’t in it for the long term.
There was no way she could stay with him after this.
She loved him. It wasn’t enough, though. Not when he didn’t love her. He’d all but told her he didn’t. If he loved her, he couldn’t have talked to her that way and made her that offer.
It was ironic, but that was exactly what gave her the strength to fight her addiction.
To stand.
And to walk to the door.
Because that was exactly what she did.
She stood by the door and looked down at her suitcase, still sitting exactly where she’d left it earlier.
Daniel followed her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Kate, I’ve done this all wrong. I assumed too much and started in the wrong place. I care for you and I want to share part of my life with you.”
He cared for her. She’d worked that much out for herself but caring wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
She turned and looked up at him. “But not all of your life.”
“I don’t plan on making promises I can’t keep. I won’t lie to you and pledge the rest of my life to you because I don’t know if I can live up to that.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t force you to marry me.”
“Let’s start over again. We can work this out. I don’t want to lose you over a misunderstanding.”
Kate shook her head. “There’s no misunderstanding.”
She should have known better than this. She’d been fooling herself, believing what she wanted to believe.
This man was so cutthroat in business that he was willing to ruin good people like her parents, not to mention countless others. That sort of person was always no-good. That side of his personality was always going to surface sooner or later.
Time to stop lying to herself.
“I’ve muffed this up completely,” Daniel said. “You want some romance in your life and that’s fair enough.”
She felt strangely calm. “I don’t want romance. I want the one thing you can’t give. Yourself.”
“I can’t promise that you and I will last forever. I can’t say that in