Page 79 of I Almost Do

I shake my head, but he nods his, as if he were expecting this conversation all along. As if the events of the night before were already front and center in his mind.

He closes his eyes in a long blink, and when he opens them, he says, "If you want sex, you can have it."

I stare at him, trying to remember the words I rehearsed for this moment. They're all gone. All my cool, collected arguments and evidence. Poof. On the wind.

If I hadn't heard the words he said last night when he was trashed on bourbon, I'd throw myself in his arms right now and pretend this is enough.

Instead, my gut churns with unexpected anger.

"How incredibly romantic, James. Thank you for that."

He scrubs at his face with his hands and then looks up at me with bleary eyes. "I love you. Iloveyou. So much it actually hurts to stay away from you. That's not hyperbole. I feel it right here." He pounds his chest with his fist, and I know what he's saying, because the hollow aching he feels is the same one I feel. "Living with you like this is impossible. I'm not doing you a favor by agreeing to it. I'm giving in to what I want to do."

"But you'll feel guilty for doing it," I say. "You'll make love to me, then lie there and feel like you defiled me or hurt me by having sex with me."

He doesn't say a word.

I move closer to him and put my hands on his face. "You recognize that's messed-up, right? The way you see me is not healthy."

He holds my wrists and pulls my hands down to his chest. He still doesn't say a word.

He's going to make me say it.

"You have some emotional work to do. You have to untangle all this crap you have mixed up in your head about my dad, and what you owe him, and this guilt you have about me. I don't know where it comes from, but you need to figure it out and sort it if we're ever going to be together as man and wife."

He steps back and shakes his head. "That's ridiculous. Your father was a good man. I'm just trying to do what he would want me to do."

"Why? I am your wife! Why would you care more about what my father may or may not have wanted than what you and I have together right now? Besides, I can tell you, my dad would have just looked the other way and pretended he didn't know I slept with my own husband, the way pretty much every other dad of an adult woman does."

"You don't know that. You said yourself he sheltered you before we were married."

I wave my hand in the air. "It doesn't matter. If my father did object to a woman having sex with her husband, so what? It's not his choice. It's yours and mine. I'm an adult. I don't need a guardian. If you can't recognize that when I'm twenty-two years old, you never will."

"So it's about the money. You want control of the rest of your money."

I scream, "Goddammit,it's not about thefuckingmoney.” I step back and take a deep breath. When I'm ready to speak more calmly, I say, "It's about how you see me. I'm not your partner. You want to take care of me, but when I try to do the same for you, you tell me that's not my job."

"I don't—"

"You don't need me. That's my point." I shake my head. "I want a husband, not a father who's hell-bent on protecting me. You don't get to make my choices for me, or decide what's good for me or what's not good for me. You don't get to beat yourself up over my choices, as if I'm a toddler you allowed to go to bed without brushing her teeth."

I cross to the french doors to look out at the pretty little patio and lawn. All sheltered and protected and cozy, hidden by a fence and trying to pretend the city isn't looming over it.

"My dad used to eat breakfast with my mother out there." I nod toward the patio. "In the summer. He never left for work without kissing her goodbye."

I turn to James. He watches me, bleeding tension and frustration.

"Did you know my mother was twenty when I was born?"

He blinks rapidly. This is new information to him. I've thrown him off, disturbed him.

I nod. "My mother died at twenty-four years old. How old was your mother?"

James flinches, and I'm sorry for it. But I don't stop. "Twenty-five isn't a magic number where I'm suddenly an adult who makes adult choices. Twenty-five doesn't suddenly make us able to have an equal relationship because you no longer happen to be managing some investments for me."

"The cyst wasn't cancerous. You're fine." His words are reassuring, but his tone is panicked.

I frown. "You're not listening to me. I'm not telling you I'm going to die young. I'm telling you I don't want to wait to live. Nothing extraordinary happens on my twenty-fifth birthday besides the fact that I'll manage some investments, which I'll probably continue to consult you about anyway. We're wasting the time we have with unnecessary guilt."

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