Page 122 of Princess of Pride
He anchors my hips to his lap. “Tell me what you want. Whatever it is, it’s yours.”
Fine. He wants to do this here and now. I raise my chin. “I want a divorce.”
A sly smile tugs up one corner of his mouth. “That’s not what you want.”
I scowl. He can’t possibly know what I want better than I do. “I want to move back to America and have my own home. I want to open a romance-only bookstore where they serve tea and desserts. I want it to look like a Jane Austen movie. I want adog.” Maybe. “A little one that I can take places like my bookstore.” If that doesn’t appall him enough, this certainly will. “I want a man who loves and adores me. I want to marry him by the ocean with no one around except for us. I want him to be devoted to me and love my bookstore as much as I do.”
He shakes his head. “That’s asking for too much.”
I knew it. I knew he could never give me what I want.
“No man will ever love your bookstore as much as you.”
My gaze tightens with anger.
He glances at my fingers that are digging into his shoulders. “Could you ease up, love?”
I loosen my grip, unaware of what I was doing. “Don’t call me that.”
“Would you prefer I call you,Cat-fiadhaich? My wild cat.”
That’s what the name of the castle’s stray cat means? Hmph. “I’d prefer you call me a ride to the airport.” I shove away from him and stand.
His reflexes are usually faster. Either I caught him off guard or he’s getting too weak to stop me. Dammit, I shouldn’t care.
“What’s wrong with you?” I touch his forehead to see if it’s hot. He’s clammy and warm. But then he’s always warm.
“See. You love me.”
“Stop saying that.” I straighten.
He catches my wrist. “I can give you everything you asked for. It’s yours already.”
“Not your heart.” Why am I entertaining him?
“I might not know how to love you the way you deserve, but I can learn. Give me the chance, Emery. Please.”
Lachlan begging and using the word please…? I melt as if submerged into a warm bath with honey and lavender oil.
Tugging free from his grasp, I cross my arms and try my hardest to shield myself from falling deeper in love with my husband. So badly, I want to believe him.
“And what about my dad’s company? Wes said you’re going to destroy it, and I’m just a sacrificial lamb for a bigger arrangement?” My ears burn at the memory of hearing Wes.
“You have to understand I was desperate when I made that arrangement. Back then, you didn’t mean what you mean to me now. You couldn’t have. I didn’t know you. I didn’t know how we’d be together. You didn’t want to marry me either. We were obligated to do it to get what we wanted.”
“What I wanted never would have affected you negatively or made you a sacrificial lamb.”
“Those were Wes’s words. Never mine.”
“But you planned to destroy my family’s legacy. Did you forget this company is meant for our child—should we have one in the future?”
His features soften with a look of nostalgia.
I shake my head and step back. “You think I want a baby with you now?”
“Spencer Securities would have thrived, regardless of any criminal activity I brought to it, but you have to know I changed that plan foryou. I was willing to go back to war, and I told Angus that, which is why he came here. He didn’t want to accept my new terms. Had you confronted me when you overheard me talking to Wes, I would have explained everything.”
“Are you implying I overreacted?” I don’t give him a chance to answer. “Because I don’t think I did. Like you said, our marriage is the result of a business merger. More than once, you told me you don’t believe in love—that it’s the worst thing that can happened to a person. It made perfect sense for me to believe what I heard was the truth and that you were using me to bring peace to your family and legacy.”
