Janelle Denison - Private Pleasures

"I guess I'd hoped you'd see how special what we have is," she said, her voice quiet.

"I do see how special what we have is," he said impatiently.

"But it's not special enough for you to marry me."

His jaw clenched hard. "I never said that."

"Not in so many words, but you might as well have, because that's what this discussion comes down to." She pulled in a big breath of air, needing the oxygen to go on. "You want me to wear your ring, but you don't want any of the responsibilities or the ultimate commitment that goes with it."

He turned away, walking to the window that faced the lake, which shimmered with the reflection of the rising moon. "I knew buying you that ring wasn't a good idea," he muttered in disgust.

"Then why did you?" she asked boldly.

"I told you why." He glanced over his shoulder, pinning her with his gaze. "I love you, Mariah."

Why isn't that enough? The unspoken question hung between them. Because I want a husband who will cherish me, and I want children to love. I want one special man to spend the rest of my life with, not the insecurity of wondering when the magic was going to end-and be left: with nothing more than the ashes of memories. I want to make memories, and pass them on to our family.

But she didn't think Grey would understand her dreams. "So, essentially, you want me to live with you, sleep in your bed, wash your underwear and wear a ring that tells any man who looks at my ring finger that I'm taken, but at any given moment you could decide that you're no longer in love and that living with a woman cramps your style?"

Irritation flashed in his gaze. "You make it sound like some kind of impersonal arrangement."

"It might as well be." She twisted the ring off her finger, feeling like she was physically severing herself from him, and set it on the nightstand next to his wallet. "This ring means nothing."

He looked from the ruby-and-diamond band to her, trying his best to conceal his hurt expression, and failing. "It means everything to me."

Unfortunately, their "everythings" differed dramatically. "Not to me. Not without marriage."

"I have no intention of getting married. Ever," he said succinctly, and not without a little hostility. "Why can't we just enjoy what we have for as long as it lasts?"

"Because I want it to last forever."

He sliced a hand impatiently through the air. "A piece of paper declaring us husband and wife hardly guarantees happily ever after."

"No, it doesn't. It's up to you and I to work together to make our life happy." She came around the bed toward him. Ludicrous as it seemed, she wanted to be near him for what precious moments were left of their unraveling relationship. "There are no guarantees in life, Grey. Maybe we'll divorce or, God forbid, maybe one of us will die tomorrow."

"And there's no guarantee that love will last," he argued.

"You're absolutely right." She stood in front of him, resisting the impulse to reach out and touch his tense body. "I know you've seen the worst of marriages and relationships, but I've seen some of the best. You can't let the horrible way your father treated you and your mother's obsession about being loved influence your life and the chance to be happy with one special woman."

He said nothing, just stared at her, his eyes darkening with a despair that made her heart ache.

"People stay in love, Grey, as long as the couple continually works at it," she went on, a desperate part of her hoping she still had a chance in heaven of influencing him. "Love is fragile. For it to grow, it has to be nurtured and never taken for granted. People grow apart and divorce because they stop caring about each other, their family and the commitment they've made."

A mocking smile curled the corner of his mouth. "What makes you so sure that won't happen to us?"

His cynicism cut deeply. "I'm not sure, but as long as we communicate and respect one another, I think we could be really good together. You're my best friend, and I'd do whatever I could to make you happy."

"And I want to make you happy. I just don't think we need marriage for that." His voice rose in frustration. "Why complicate things?"

"Because I don't want to have children out of wedlock." The words tumbled out of her mouth faster than she could rescind them. But they were the truth, and it was an issue that needed to be discussed.

He blanched. "I never said anything about children."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Except that you don't want them."

His mouth thinned into a grim line. "At least I'm honest about it. Kids need a father who can be there for them emotionally, who can raise them with a gentle but firm touch. I can't do that, Mariah. I don't know how to do that. All I know is the anger and cruelty I learned at my father's knee. I refuse to subject a child to that kind of ugliness."

He turned around and focused his attention somewhere out the window. Very quietly, very defeatedly, he said, "They'd be better off without me as a father."

A crushing pressure filled her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe. "You are so very wrong," she whispered. "They'd be very fortunate to have you as a dad."

He whirled around and scowled. "How the hell would you know?"

"From what you've told me about Aaron Nichols, I know firsthand you're a better man than your father ever was."

His laugh was self-depreciating. "I could be worse. Much worse."

She shook her head, refusing to be baited. "I wouldn't consider marrying a man who wasn't gentle and kind and loving. You have those qualities, Grey. And those qualities are what I love the most about my father."

She watched him struggle with some internal battle-wanting to believe her but allowing that vulnerable little boy in him to cling to the past and all the troubling memories of his childhood: the verbal abuse from his father and his mother's neglect.

Until Grey resolved those fears and insecurities, she knew they had no chance at a future.

He scrubbed his hand along his jaw, misery clouding his features. "So, what this all boils down to is you want all or nothing."

"Yeah, I guess I do. I'm afraid being someone's mistress isn't my style." She drew a deep shuddering breath, and although her heart felt torn and ragged, a strange calm swept over her. "I want to be your wife, Grey, and I want to be the mother of your children, not just the woman you happen to be living with and sleeping with. If you love me the way you say you do, then marriage would be the next logical step in our relationship. Anything else we can work on together, as husband and wife."

He uttered a strangled sound, and his hands fisted at his sides. "Dammit, Mariah… I can't."

She couldn't stop the tears that stung the back of her eyes and spilled forward. "And I can't keep loving you and being with you day after day, not without a promise for a future together."

His own eyes misted, and his throat worked spasmodically. He took a step toward her, then stopped. "Mariah, please don't do this to us."

"I have no choice." Bridging the distance between them, she brushed her lips across his, wanting to forever remember the taste of him. His body shuddered in response, but he showed greater restraint than she and kept his hands to himself.

"I love you, Grey," she said softly, touching his cheek, his jaw, imprinting everything about him into her mind before letting her hand fall away. "I probably always will. Even if you don't realize it, you would have made a wonderful husband and a great father. One of these days you're going to realize exactly what you threw away, but by then it'll be too late. You'll be alone and lonely, wishing you had a wife to keep you company and grandchildren to spoil. Maybe, if you're lucky, one day you'll take a chance and find happiness with another woman."

"I don't want any other woman."

She smiled sadly. "And I don't want any other man, but I want a husband as well as a lover. Someone I know will be there for me when I'm old and gray and a little slow getting around. I want to come home to the same man for fifty years and still feel that surge of excitement I do every time I look at you. I want children to enrich my and my husband's life, and when they're grown, I want a man who will still be my best friend, my lover, my life." A tear trickled down her cheek, but she didn't bother wiping it away. "I wanted that with you, Grey."

His anguish was real, so real she had to fight the urge to tell him to forget everything she'd just said, that she'd take him on any terms he demanded.

A thread of common sense kept her grounded to reality.

She swallowed the huge knot of sorrow lodged in her throat. She knew what she had to do, though she might have just as well carved her heart out of her chest while she was at it. "It's over, Grey, for good this time," she said in a choked voice, hating the words that would forever sever him from her life.

"Mariah, you can't mean this."

His despair ripped at her soul. "I do," she whispered, and turned to finish packing the bags. "The honeymoon is over, Grey, it's time to take me home."

Mariah blinked her eyes open and groaned. She wanted to die. From heartbreak. And from the miserable bout of flu that had lingered for the past week. The two combined was enough to give new meaning to the word anguish.

She glanced at the clock on her nightstand, unable to believe she'd slept until noon. She was so tired lately that no amount of sleep seemed to make her feel refreshed. With effort, she got out of bed, put on her old, favorite chenille robe and shuffled into the kitchen.