Page 103 of Deceiving an Earl
“I can’t do that.”
“We are nothing to you.”
When he didn’t respond she glanced up at him to find a look of profound disappointment and sadness in him.
“Is that what you think? That you are nothing to me?”
“Oliver.” She shouldn’t have said that. What had she been thinking to hurt him in such a way?
“Because I love you, Ellen.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Oliver’s words dropped into the silence between them. Ellen opened her mouth to deny them, to tell him that he couldn’t possibly love her, that if he only knew what she had done to him, the secrets she’d kept, he would despise her.
But of course she couldn’t say any of that so instead she said, “Oliver, don’t.”
“No.” He shook his head in a way that told her he’d made a decision. “I’m not going to be quiet about this anymore. I’m not going to stand back and watch you make such a monumental mistake. Not again.”
“Arthur was not a mistake.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you did. You said ‘not again.’”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“If not for Arthur there wouldn’t be Philip. That was not a mistake.”
“Is that true, Ellen?” He cocked his head to stare at her.
She paused. “Marrying William is not a mistake, either,” she said softly. It was a very calculated risk.
“Ellen.” He ran a hand through his hair and breathed out in frustration. “We need to be honest with each other.”
Ellen stood and paced to the other end of the room when what she really wanted to do was run away, hide. From everything. From William, from Oliver, from herself.
“I told you I loved you.” He stood as well.
“Oliver—”
“Please, let me finish. I think I’ve loved you from that first kiss under the tree, and I’ve never stopped. Not once. I think… I think the reason I never married was because no one measured up to you. I tried. I searched. But no one compared.”
“Oh, Oliver.” Her heart was breaking, and she didn’t think her heart could break any more than it already had. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Just tell me the truth.”
She drew in a deep breath, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t do it. She’d held her secret for so long that she physically couldn’t tell him. And there was still that fear of ruining everyone’s lives. And then there was William, who was threatening everything.
But she could tell him one thing. One thing that was completely the truth.
“That night, that first night with you, was everything that I had hoped being with a man might be. You said you fell in love with me under the tree. I fell in love with you long before that. But we were doomed. We are destined to be doomed, to never be able to express our love to each other.”
“At least you admit your love, but I refuse to believe we are doomed.”
She paced to the other side of the room and stopped before the fireplace, agitated and sad that their lives would always be interrupted, never completed. She did love this man. He was kind and gentle and always willing to lend a helping hand.
“You must,” she said. “You must come to terms with the fact that we can never be together.”
