That wound is deeper than you can heal.
No, it was deep, no question. But it wasn’t mortal. And she already knew it was going to take time. She could help him with that, she was sure of it. “Please don’t agree just to spite your parents,” Anna said quietly.
The glow in his eyes focused sharply on her. “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, you should have a family because you want one. Because you want a wife and a child. Because you love them.” Her mouth had suddenly gone dry, but she made herself say it. “A family isn’t about gaining an inheritance or getting revenge, Cedric. A family is about love. Or do you want your children to have the same childhood you had?”
She was pushing him, she knew it. And perhaps she’d pushed too far, because the expression on his face shut down and let her go, stepping back. Her heart shriveled in her chest at the cold look on his face, her fingers curling around the warmth of his body still lingering on her palms. And she wanted to go to him, tell him she didn’t mean to push, that if he didn’t want a family then they wouldn’t, that as long she could keep being with him she didn’t care…
“Are you ready?” His tone was courteous, but she could hear the iron in it. He didn’t want to talk about this. “The limo will be here any moment.”
An ache crept slowly through her. Because this was familiar, the distance in his voice and the cold, hard edge to the words. He sounded exactly like her father, putting her from him as if her emotion offended him. You shouldn’t have said anything. The ache deepened, part of her wanting to be quiet, to contain herself, do what she’d done all her life and keep herself in check. Yet there was another part, the protective, passionate part, that was urging her to fight for what she wanted, because this was important. It wasn’t just about her now, but their child.
And after all, this was Cedric. Who liked her anger and her intensity. Who’d told her that she was a beautiful storm. So why not push him? Why not challenge him? So very few people did…
“Is that it, then?” she demanded, not tempering herself this time. “Is this how it’s going to be? Whenever we have a discussion about what’s killing you, you walk away?”
His eyes had gone so cold, his expression a mask, but she went on, “And what will you tell our child when they want to know how we met? That you married me and conceived them for an inheritance? That they were only ever wanted as a way to get back at your long-dead family?”
Cedric said nothing. He turned his back on her and headed straight for the door.
But that bright thread inside her was hot and it burned, and she wasn’t afraid of it, not any more. Not when she had nothing left to lose. It was a lifeline and so she threw it to him.
“I want you, Cedric,” she said. “I want to be your wife. I want you to be the father of my children. And I want a family and a life with you, and not because of some stupid will, but because I love you.”
Cedric stilled in the doorway, conscious of his heart giving a strange jolting leap just as it froze solid in his chest Love. She loved him. Shock filtered through him. He hadn’t thought about love, not for one single second. Love was never supposed to be part of this and, because he hadn’t thought of it, some part of him had assumed that she wouldn’t either.
He was wrong though, and maybe, on reflection, he should have known this would happen. That she was too passionate a woman not to let her feelings become involved. Then again, he had no reason to think she would love him, not when no one else ever had.
You always wanted it though. You’re desperate for it.
Ice swept through him, his breath catching, a deep pain unfurling inside him, but he shut it down before it could take hold. No. He didn’t need it. He didn’t want it. The last time he’d been that desperate he’d been very young and his father had told him that he had nothing left to give him.
And in that moment Cedric had felt something in his own heart flicker and go out, leaving a void inside him. It had been a blessing, that void. Because if he didn’t feel anything, then there was no pain, and he was sick of pain. Sick of hope. Sick of everything that love brought with it. He’d been glad that it had gone, and he was in no hurry to reignite that flame.
“You shouldn’t have said that.” His voice sounded cold, and he made no attempt to soften it.
“Why not?” Hers, by contrast, was hot, the fire at the core of her blazing in every word. “Why shouldn’t I love you?”
She stood by the vanity in her golden gown. She hadn’t got completely ready; her hair was still loose in a wild tangle down her back, and she hadn’t yet put her make-up on. Her eyes glowed like jewels, her vivid, expressive face filled with something light and somehow defiant. His goddess, blazing with strength. Something flickered inside him, but he crushed it. Suffocated it.
She’s offering you everything you always wanted. Yes, it was true. His beautiful wife was pregnant with his child and now she was in love with him… But he couldn’t take her. He couldn’t close that distance between them. Because now he understood. Now he knew exactly what his father must have felt when Cedric had confronted him, telling him that he had a son who was alive and who needed him. And Magnus Blackwood must have felt this same void where his heart should have been. This same emptiness, right down deep at the core of him.
He had nothing to give her, which meant he couldn’t take what she was giving him. If he did, he’d be no better than his father, taking love and never being touched by it. Never giving anything back. Taking it all until Cedric’s heart was just as empty and barren as his father’s had been.