SILENT DESIRES

Neal Patchett didn’t even sound sorry.

“Because he doesn’t love me,” she fairly shouted into the phone.

“No reason to yell, missy. I may be getting old, but I hear just fine. The man wants you and for him, that’s probably as close to love as any woman will ever get.”

She curled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. Could her father be right?

“You should not have done it.” She said,

“Tess, you wouldn’t take anything else from me.”

“I didn’t want anything, just your love.” That was all she’d ever wanted from the two most important men in her life and the one thing she was destined not to get. “I’ve got to go.”

“No, wait, child.”

“What?” she asked with a lackluster voice.

“I do love you.” he said.

Four words she’d longed to hear since she was a child. They touched her now, healed some things inside her, but could not soothe the pain from Dash’s rejection and her father’s part in it.

“I love you, too,” she said nevertheless.

He cleared his throat, the sound harsh. “I never meant to hurt you.” he said.

“I can see that.”

They hung up, her father sounding not quite his normal confident, gruff self.

She decided to take a walk and slipped her feet into a pair of sandals. Once she was beyond the formal gardens surrounding the villa, she let her feet wander where they would.

So many things were tumbling through her mind, she couldn’t hold a single thought for longer than a second. Dash had been blackmailed into marrying her. She had no right to hold him, even less chance at securing his love. How could he come to love a woman he associated with the pegging down of his pride?

He’d forgotten about getting her pregnant, but now that she was, he wanted to stay married. She’d been humiliated to realize her marriage was the result of little more than a business arrangement between two powerful men, but this made it worse. For him to stay with her, to want her only for the life she carried inside of her was a total denial of herself as a woman.

Dash had believed she was part of the plot and felt made a fool of because of it. So he had hurt her. He was sorry now and both he and Olivia denied having slept together.

Tess believed them. She remembered how sexually hungry Dash had been that night when he returned. He was hopelessly oversexed anyway, but that night, he had been desperate for her. That was not the response of a man getting all the sex he wanted from his ex-girlfriend.

Where did her love for him fit into all this? She was pregnant with his child, but was that enough to keep a marriage that was nothing more than an arrangement together?

No.

But her love and his sincerity might be.

He was right. They’d spent too much time alone lately. If he was serious about trying, she didn’t see that she had much choice because to contemplate life without Dash was to contemplate a pain she did not want to bear.

She headed back to the house, determined to find Dash and finish their discussion.

She found him in a lounge by the pool. He hadn’t changed clothes and his expression was bleak.

“Dash.” She called.

He looked up.

“We need to talk.”

He nodded. “Where?”

He was asking her? “Can we go back to our room?” she asked.

He stood up and took her arm. She didn’t fight his touch now and some tension drained from him, not all, but some.

When they reached the sala, he led her to the sofa where he sat and pulled her down beside him.

“What have you decided?” he asked.

“Tell me again why you were with Olivia”

“I wanted you to believe I was having an affair.” He took her hands in his, his grip crushing. “But I swear this is not true. I want no other woman, have not since the first time I kissed you.”

“No other woman…at all…since then?” she asked.

“None,” he confirmed.

That meant something, but she wasn’t sure what yet.

“You wanted me to think you and Olivia were back together because you wanted to get back at my father and me?”

He shook his head. “I was devastated by the belief you had been part of the blackmail scheme. Hurt. When I hurt, I lash out. I did not think it through, I just did it. By the time I came back, I knew I did not want you to believe I had broken my promise.”

“But you neglected to tell Olivia, so when I called and she answered, she played it up,” Tess guessed.

Dash nodded, his mouth twisting. “Much to my detriment.” he said.

“I want to believe you.” She ached to believe him.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“But,” he prompted.

“You broke your other promise. The one about treasuring my love.” She tried to pull her hands away at the painful memory, but he would not let go.

“No, I did not. In my heart, I always treasured your love and when you stopped saying the words, it hurt more than I wanted to admit. I made love to you frequently to assure myself that if nothing else, the passion between us was real and honest. That you wanted me even if you did not love me.”

The words sounded so like the way she’d been feeling that she choked on her next question. “So, I wasn’t just a convenience you used to assuage your strong sexual appetite?”

Suddenly she found herself on his lap, his arms wrapped tightly around her, his face close to hers. “I never thought of you that way. I was hurting and the only place I could connect with you was in bed.” he said.

“We connected pretty often.”

His sculpted cheekbones turned dusky. “Yeah.”

“Do you want me to stay only for the baby?” she asked.

His face contorted and he buried it in the hollow of her neck. “No. I want you to stay for me. I cannot live without you, honey. Do not go away from me.”

He punctuated the words with tiny kisses that made her shiver.

“But a marriage without love has little hope of surviving.” She said,