Page 17 of For the Love of Lilah
“I want you.” I heard my own whisper and felt no shame. “Touch me, Christian. Let me belong to you.” My heart was racing as I pressed wantonly against him. “Make love to me. Take me to your bed.”
How tightly his arms gripped me, so tightly I couldn’t get my breath. Then his hands were on my face, and I felt the tremor in his fingertips. His eyes were nearly black. So much could be read there. Passion, love, desperation, regret.
“Do you know how often I’ve dreamed of it? How many nights I’ve lain awake aching for you?” Then he released me to stride across the room to where my portrait hung on his wall. “I want you, Bianca, every time I take a breath. And I love you too much to take what can’t be mine.”
“Christian—”
“Do you think I could let you go if I’d ever touched you?” There was anger now, ripe and violent as he whirled back. “I hate knowing that we sneak like sinners just to spend an hour together, as innocent as children. If I don’t have the strength to turn away from you completely, then I will have enough to keep you from taking a step you’d only regret.”
“How could I regret belonging to you?”
“Because you already belong to someone else. And every time you go back to him, I dream of killing him with my bare hands if only because he can look at you when I can’t. If we took this last step, I’d leave you no choice. There would be no going back to him, Bianca. No going back to your home, or your life.”
And I knew it was true, as he stood between me and the image of me he’d created.
So I left him to come home, to tie a ribbon in Colleen’s hair, to chase a ball with Ethan, to dry Sean’s tears when he scraped his knee. To dine in miserable politeness with a husband who is more and more of a stranger to me.
Christian’s words were true, and it is a truth I must face. The time is coming when I will no longer be able to live in both worlds, but must choose one, only one.
Chapter Four
“I have the most marvelous idea,” Coco announced. Like a ship in full sail, she streamed into the kitchen where Lilah, Max, Suzanna and her family were having breakfast.
“Good for you,” Lilah said over a bowl of chocolate-chip ice cream. “Anyone who can think at this hour deserves a medal, or should be committed.”
Like a mother hen, Coco checked the herbs she had potted on the window. She clucked over the basil before she turned back. “I have no idea why I didn’t think of it before. It’s really so—”
“Alex is kicking me under the table.”
“Alex, don’t kick your sister,” Suzanna said mildly. “Jenny, don’t interrupt.”
“I wasn’t kicking her.” Milk dribbled down Alex’s chin. “She got her knee in the way of my foot.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Turkey face.”
“Booger head.”
“Alex.” Suzanna bit down on the inside of her lip to maintain the properly severe maternal disapproval. “Do you want to eat that cereal or wear it?”
“She started it,” he muttered.
“Did not,” Jenny said under her breath.
“Did too.”
Another glance at their mother had them subsiding to eye each other with grim dislike over their cereal bowls.
“Now that that’s settled.” Amused, Lilah licked her spoon. “What’s your marvelous idea, Aunt Coco?”
“Well.” She fluffed her hair, absently checking her reflection in the toaster, approving it, then beaming. “It all has to do with Max. Really it’s so obvious. But, of course, we were worried about his health, then it’s so difficult to think clearly with this construction going on. Do you know one of those young men was out on the terrace this morning in nothing but a pair of jeans and a tool belt? Very distracting.” She peeked out of the kitchen window, just in case.
“I’m sorry I missed it.” Lilah winked at Max. “Was it the guy with the long blond hair tied back with a leather thong?”
“No, the one with dark curly hair and a mustache. I must say, he’s extremely well built. I suppose one would keep fit swinging hammers or whatever all day. The noise is a bother, though. I hope it doesn’t disturb you, Max.”
