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As they boarded the jet, Sasha debated coming clean to him about her memory but a private nurse was traveling with them along with Rafael’s assistant, Tino. The flight was less than two hours so they stayed in their seats, rather than move into the stateroom where they would have had more privacy.
Some of the shades were open so Sasha kept her sunglasses on. Rafael’s breath rattled out as he settled into the seat beside her.
Pity for both of them rolled through her along with a tingling longing. She yearned for the comfort of his touch. She had nearly lost him!
She didn’t care as much that her own life had been endangered. Her baby would be safe with Molly no matter what happened to her. She already knew that, since her first one was. Thank God the baby hadn’t been at risk in that crash.
But nearly losing Rafael was terrifying. It made her realize how much she really did love him, even though she was still furiously angry with him.
Love is a liability.
It sure was. That’s why she was pretending she hadn’t offered hers to him.
She had come so close to telling him everything that night! The affair with a married man, Libby, her real relationship with Molly—whom she did love, but not in the way he’d suggested.
He had laughed at her for saying she loved him. Her trust and willingness to share had been shattered at that point. Even if he did care about her to some extent, it was only the exact amount that was appropriate for a wife who had helped him achieve what he wanted to achieve. She couldn’t stand that she had practically begged him to feel more. She must seem utterly pathetic in his eyes.
As the plane took off, she glanced to see the nurse and assistant were ensconced at the back of the cabin, and turned her head to study the mottled bruise on the side of his face.
An urge to kiss it better nearly overwhelmed her, but he turned his own head to ask, “You really can’t remember anything?”
She was glad she was wearing her sunglasses because her eyes reflexively widened in alarm as she felt pinned by his hard stare. She sidestepped by focusing on the memory she genuinely had lost.
“The driver told the investigators that we were arguing.” An officer had come by her room to ask what she remembered of the crash. She had told him with complete honesty that she didn’t recall anything about being in the car. “He said we distracted him. Is that true? Or is he trying to get out of taking responsibility?”
“It’s true.” Rafael’s mouth flattened into a tight line. He looked forward again, eyes closing in a slow blink. “He was startled into hitting the brake and glanced back at us. He didn’t see the other car jumping the light and stopped right in front of it.”
Rafael had taken the brunt of that? She felt ill.
“What were we arguing about?” She could hardly speak around the lump in her chest.
He drew in a breath to speak, then let it out, seeming reluctant to answer.
“You told me you loved me. You don’t remember saying that?” He turned his head again, sending the intensity of his narrow-eyed gaze across her face like a laser that left every inch of her skin feeling scorched.
Oh, God.
She used one hand to cover the other as it curled into a fist in her lap.
“How is that an argument?” her scattered brain managed to ask. “We’re married. Don’t we love each other?”
It was unkind of her to use her lie as a tool to poke at him and their marriage, but she had no defenses otherwise. They would be right back to that impossible cold war except he’d have her heart in his pocket. This was the only way to take herself back from him.
“I want to say yes,” he admitted heavily, causing a pulsing sting to shoot through her veins. “But we made a deal when we married that we would always be honest with each other. I want to honor that.”
Wow. Nothing had changed. They had nearly been killed, but it hadn’t moved the dial on his feelings for her. She felt as though the floor had dropped out of the plane and she was plummeting to the earth at a million miles an hour.
She had known all along that he didn’t love her, though. For a long time, it hadn’t mattered. Not until they had tried to start a family and the weight of her first baby became too much to bear. If she couldn’t trust him with her heart, how could she trust him with the innocent person inside it? That’s what this came down to.
“So you don’t love me. And that’s why we were fighting?” It was painful to force this clarity, but it hardened her resolve to keep up this game. “Why are we even married?”
“I’m very fond of you—”
“Fond,” she choked. “Fond is how you feel toward a great-aunt who offers you peppermints. Why did you even bring me with you today? Why not send me home with my parents if you don’t care what happens to me?”
“I care,” he said through his teeth. “You would never forgive me if I let them take you. And you’re my wife, Alexandra. Even if you don’t remember it. I protect what’s mine.”
She snorted, realizing she had always been one more asset he had collected. She wanted to cry, but only closed her eyes, claiming, “I’m tired.”
