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“So could you! He almost killed you, Nathaniel!”
He moved her aside, jumped up from the bed, and swiftly put on his trousers and boots. Tiny snakes of fury shot up and down his body. “I don’t care about that. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if you died to save me, just as I will never forgive myself for my mama’s death. I would have gladly exchanged places with her, just so that she would live. And I would have gladly died for you.”
The look of shock on her face made him swallow his tongue. “Well then I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself,” she said. “Your mother wouldn’t want you to live your entire life thinking it was your fault she died. That is not why she protected you. She protected you so that you would be happy. Live your life with no regrets. She gave you a precious gift, Nathaniel. A gift you’re throwing away by blaming yourself when there was nothing that you could have done against a band of highwaymen who killed your bodyguards!”
He was shaking. Her words were like a hammer against his heart.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” he roared. “I have lived just fine until you came into my life. My sisters were safe. My heart—” He stopped himself before he would tell her the whole truth.
That he loved her so much, he couldn’t stand the mere thought of something happening to her.
That he wouldn’t be able to survive.
That she was the best and the worst thing that had happened to him.
He pushed out a lungful of air in a sharp exhale and collected himself. His heart beat so hard, he thought she might hear it drumming against his ribs.
“I can’t stand to do this anymore, Calliope. When I saw you there in that window… I thought now that you may be pregnant, you would understand that you are risking not just your safety but also the safety of our baby.”
She frowned. “Of course I understand that! But I had to help you. You have to trust me to make my own—”
Trust her? How could he trust her? He couldn’t even trust himself.
He interrupted her with a sharp gesture of his arm. “You won’t stop, will you? You’ll never stop. Your sleuth agency—that lunacy—”
She gasped, and her face lit up as though on fire. Her eyes widened, her hand clutching at her stomach. “Lunacy?”
He was too harsh—he regretted the word the moment it left this mouth, but hurtful words were better than a broken neck.
“You’ll never listen to me and try to avoid danger. You’re too independent, too strong.” He failed to tell her that was what he admired and loved about her…though it also terrified him. “I would have never married you had I known. I wouldn’t want to limit your freedom. Do you think I enjoyed driving you to Kelford and leaving you there when all I wanted was to never leave your sight?”
Her face softened. “You didn’t want to leave my sight? But—”
“But I just can’t stand the fear and worry.”
His whole body grew cold. These dangers, they would never end. She would be putting herself at risk every single day. He knew he needed to trust her to defend herself. He’d seen her do it. But what if the next time she couldn’t?
It was as though a shard of broken glass pierced his heart, and an icy realization hit his brain. He had lived alone, not allowing himself to fall in love, for this exact reason.
He looked at her precious face and felt the distance between them grow into a vast chasm. “You are too dangerous for me.”
* * *
Calliope slowly stood up from the bed, her sex still sleek and wet, her body warm from the fire he’d lit within her. She could feel him withdraw, could see the cold in his eyes like a wall of ice. They were still turquoise, only not the warm turquoise of the Mediterranean but the turquoise of the eternal ice in Norway.
It was confirmation of something she’d feared her whole life.
Their shared warmth and joy was an illusion.
From an early age, Calliope had known she was fiercely independent, perhaps to a fault. William King had only reinforced that belief when he’d discovered her reading mature literature and engaging in private explorations far too young.
She had always thought she might be too formidable, too self-reliant for a partner. Sometimes she even felt a pang of shame for being so. Who could truly love her with such a resolute spirit?
For a few wonderful weeks with Nathaniel, she had harbored this mad hope that she may have done the impossible: married a man who would love her…who would cherish her because she was so different, so strong and independent.
Not in spite of it.
She was so wrong. He was just like the rest of them. He didn’t trust her to know her own mind. He didn’t trust her to keep herself and her baby safe.
