Джоанна Рок – Her Exquisite Surrender: Surrendering All But Her Heart / Innocent in the Ivory Tower / Full Surrender (страница 22)
‘Are you infertile?’
She rolled her eyes heavenwards and turned away. ‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’
He came over to her and took her by the upper arms. ‘Then make me understand,’ he said.
She pressed her lips together, as if she was trying to stop an outburst of unchecked speech from escaping.
He gave her arms a gentle squeeze. ‘Talk to me, Tatty.’
Her eyes watered and she blinked a couple of times to push the tears back. ‘What sort of mother would I be?’ she asked.
‘You’d be a wonderful mother.’
‘I’d be a total nutcase,’ she said, pulling away from him. ‘I’d probably be one of those helicopter parents everyone talks about. I would never be able to relax. So much can happen to a child. There’s so much danger out there: illness, accidents, sick predators on the streets and online. It’s all too much to even think about.’
‘Most parents manage to bring up their children without anything horrible happening to them,’ he said. ‘It’s easy to look at what’s reported in the press and think that the danger is widespread and unavoidable, but you’re disregarding all the positive parenting experiences that are out there.’
‘I just don’t want to go there,’ she said. ‘You can’t make me. No one can make me. You can’t force me to get pregnant.’
‘I sure hope you’re on the pill, then, because I haven’t always used protection.’
‘Did you do that deliberately?’ she asked with a hardened look.
‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘You were on the pill in the past … I just assumed … OK, maybe I shouldn’t have. I’m clear, if that’s what’s worrying you.’
‘Yes, well, so am I,’ she said. ‘It’s not like I’ve been out there much just lately.’
‘Have you been “out there” at all?’
She tried to look casual about it, but he saw her nibble at the inside of her mouth. ‘A couple of times,’ she said.
‘What happened?’
She gave him a withering look. ‘I’m not going to discuss my sex life with you.’
‘Did you have sex?’
She looked away. ‘It wasn’t great sex,’ she said. ‘More of a token effort, really. I don’t even remember the guy’s name.’
‘What were you trying to prove?’
She looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I’ve noticed you have a habit of using sex when you want to avoid intimacy.’
She pulled her chin back in derision. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said. ‘What sort of pop psychology is that? Isn’t sex all about intimacy?’
‘Physical, maybe, but not emotional,’ he said. ‘Emotional intimacy takes it to a whole different level.’
‘That’s way too deep for me,’ she said, with an airy toss of her head. ‘I like sex. I like the rush of it. I don’t need anything else.’
‘You don’t want anything else because you’re running away from who you really are,’ he said.
‘I’m sure you’re a great big world expert on emotional intimacy,’ she said with a scathing curl of her lip. ‘You’ve had five different lovers in the last year.’
‘So you
She stalked to the other side of the room. ‘The Texan heiress was way too young for you,’ she said. ‘She looked like she was barely out of the schoolroom.’
‘I didn’t sleep with her.’
She gave a scoffing laugh. ‘No, I can imagine you didn’t. You would’ve kept her up way past her bedtime with your silver-tongued charm.’
Angelo ground his teeth in search of patience. ‘I’m not going to wait for ever for you, Natalie,’ he said. ‘I have an empire that needs an heir. I’ve felt the pressure of that since I was twenty-one years old. If you can’t commit to that, then I’ll have to find someone else who will.’
She gave him a stony look. ‘That’s why you forced me into this farce of a marriage, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘It isn’t just about revenge or nostalgic past feelings. It’s a convenient way to get what you want. My brother played right into your hands.’
‘This has nothing to do with your brother,’ he said. ‘This is between us. It’s always been between us.’
Her slate-blue eyes were hard and cynical. ‘Tell me something, Angelo,’ she said. ‘Would you have done it? Would you really have sent my brother to prison?’
He returned her look with ruthless determination. ‘You’re still the only person standing between your brother and years behind bars,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever forget that, Natalie. His future is in your hands.’
She put up her chin, her eyes flashing their blue fire of defiance at him. ‘I could call your bluff on that.’
He nailed her with his gaze. ‘You do that, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘And see how far it gets you.’
NATALIE walked out in the moonlit gardens when sleep became impossible. She had tossed and fretted for the past couple of hours, but there was no way she could close her eyes without images of the past flickering through her brain like old film footage.
The hours leading up to it were always mental torture. Was that why she had practically thrown herself at Angelo, in an attempt to block it from her mind? She hadn’t seen him since he had stalked out on her after delivering his spine-chilling threat.
She wanted to see if he really was as ruthless as he claimed to be but it was too risky. Lachlan would have to pay the price.
He had a future—the future that had been taken from Liam. Lachlan didn’t just have his own life to live; he had that of his baby brother, too. No wonder he was buckling under the pressure. Who could ever live up to such a thing? Lachlan was his own person. He had his own goals and aspirations. But for years he had suppressed them in order to keep their parents happy. He had no interest in the family business. Natalie could see that, but their father could not or would not. Their mother couldn’t see further than the label on the next bottle of liquor.
She gave a thorny sigh and turned to look at the shimmering surface of the pool that had appeared as if by magic in front of her. She generally avoided swimming pools.
Even the smell of chlorine was enough to set the nerves in her stomach into a prickling panic. Before Liam’s death she had loved the water. She had spent many a happy hour in the pool at Armitage Manor, practising what she had learned with Granny and Grandad at the beach at Crail. But after Liam had died the pool had been bulldozed and made into a tennis court.
She looked at the moonlit water; a tiny breeze teased the surface. It was like a crinkled bolt of silver silk.
Had she come out here in a subconscious attempt to find some peace at last? Would she ever find peace? Forgiveness? Redemption?
A footfall behind her had her spinning around so quickly she almost fell into the water behind her.
‘Couldn’t you at least have said something before sneaking up on me like that?’ she asked clutching at her thumping chest as Angelo stepped into the circle of light from one of the garden lamps.
‘Can’t sleep?’ he asked.
She rubbed at her arms even though it was still warm. ‘It’s not all that late,’ she said.
‘It’s three a.m.’
She frowned. ‘Is it?’
‘I’ve been watching you for the last hour.’
She narrowed her gaze. ‘Don’t you mean spying?’
‘I was worried about you.’
She raised a brow mockingly. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘You thought I might do something drastic rather than face the prospect of being tied to you for the rest of my life?’
‘I was concerned you might go for a swim.’
Her eyebrow arched even higher. ‘Do I have to ask your permission?’