Page 415 of The Christmas Wife

"You really don’t?"

One side of his lips quirk.Hooray! That’s a win.

"When you smile, your entire face changes. You look younger and innocent."

His eyebrows draw down. "But I’m not."

I glance away.Why did I have to go put my foot in my mouth?

The music changes to Mariah Carey’s, "All I Want for Christmas."

He winces.

When I reach over and shut off the music, he doesn’t protest. We drive in silence, and once we cross the city limits, he relaxes a little.

"You must have celebrated Christmas when you were a priest?”

He hesitates, and I’m sure he’s going to stay silent, but then he nods. "It was a special time of the year, when the spirit did seem to infect the congregation. It changed the tone of the prayers. There was something magical about the hymns. The one time when the veil between this world and the next seemed to thin enough to feel the presence of The Other."

He lapses into silence, and I swallow around the ball of emotion in my throat. "That was almost poetic."

"That's when I was a believer."

"What do you believe in now?" The words are out before I can stop them. Because I need to know what it is that drives this man. When he walked away from his calling, how did he cope? By his own admission, he was unmoored.What is he holding onto now? How does he move from one day to the next when what he once put his faith in doesn’t exist anymore?

When he doesn’t answer, I touch his shoulder. He flinches, and it’s as if someone slapped me. I begin to retreat, but he grabs my hand, then brings it to his mouth and kisses it, before placing it on his knee. "Sorry, I’m still getting used to having someone else in my space, in my life."

"You didn’t think it through when you decided to marry?"

One side of his lips lifts. Another almost-smile.Whoo-hoo, that’s a score right there for me.

"I hadn’t thought it through when I asked you to marry me. I didn’t realize how you were going to turn my world upside down. How you were going to occupy space in my mind, my thoughts… My heart."

I freeze. "Did you say?—"

"My heart, yes. I swore not to lie to you anymore, remember?"

"So you do have feelings for me?"

"Isn’t that evident?"

"But you still don’t trust me enough to take your clothes off in front of me?"

42

Edward

"Don’t ask that of me… Yet." I tighten my fingers around the steering wheel.Haven’t I unbent enough? Haven’t I shared more with her than with anyone else, including Ava? Except perhaps, Baron.He knew the boy I was. She knows the man I’ve become. I’ve allowed her a peek into my thoughts, I’ve confessed to having feelings for her.What more does she want?

"I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed you." She begins to pull her hand back, but I hold onto it. I slide my fingers through hers and she seems to relax a little. "I never thought you’d ever come out and tell me you have feelings for me, and I know how difficult that must be for you."

"Do you?" I ask, not because I don’t believe her, but because I’m genuinely curious.Could this woman understand, when I’ve tried and failed at that task so many times myself?

"Yes." She nods. "Yes, I do. You think I’m young and naive, but I am wise in the ways of the world. I saw how it tore my father apart when my mother died. How he tried to do his bestwhen he married my stepmother. How he hoped to replace the mother-shaped hole in my life and the wife-shaped one in his with another family, despite knowing it would never work. She was gone, and nothing we did could alleviate the pain that was left behind. And when he realized he had only worsened the situation, he retreated into his business. He poured his love, his feelings, his desires into it… Which is why I couldn’t say no when he asked for my help to save it."

My shoulder muscles stiffen.

"He replaced my mother with his work, with building this empire which he was going to hand over to someone else one day, anyway. Not me or my half-sisters, because we weren’t interested in running it, but to a stranger. And when I realized that it would be you, it felt right."

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