Page 56 of The Duchess' Ultimatum
“For which you have not given me a chance to explain myself.”
“I am here, aren’t I!” she cried, throwing her hands in the air. “Explain away, please. Tell me why. I am all ears.”
Penelope did not want to hear his explanation. Not anymore. She had done, earlier today, last night, most of this evening if she was being honest. But as the day had worn on, as she’d thoughtmore about it, a decision was reached and from that she would not budge.
It hurt to admit, but Penelope decided that what she was feeling for Dorian wasn’t love or companionship or anything that might suggest they could work as husband and wife. It was loneliness, manifesting itself as emotional compatibility. She was feeling empty, Dorian was a chance to fill that hole, and she’d allowed herself to believe that with him she might finally be happy.
But her problems ran far deeper than that. And her purpose…Dorian won’t fix it, and nor will having a child. They are bandages where stitches are required, because the wound that torments me is deeper than I am willing to admit.
“I… I was surprised,” Dorian attempted. “Not expecting you to… my sister –”
“Is your excuse for everything!”
“She is not an excuse!” Dorian snarled. “She is my everything. She is why I have done all of this!” He gestured with his hands to the ballroom. “She is why I have spent the last three years… all I do… it is for her. And I thought you of all people would know that.”
“That isn’t an answer,” Penelope said. “It is, as I said, an excuse.”
“Penelope…” Dorian’s expression softened. The anger fled him. He fixed her in a gaze that spoke of sadness, laced with furtherconfusion because despite his efforts to explain himself, he still did not know what he wanted. “I didn’t pull away because I don’t… because I don’t feel anything for you. You must know that.”
“How can I possibly?” her voice softened also, the anger gone, resignation taking over.
Slowly, Dorian reached out and took her hand. He held it and squeezed it and she felt that familiar warmth spreading through her. Only this time, rather than accepting it, she forced herself to fight it back.
“I am sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. “You are allowed to be sorry. But what you are not allowed to be is surprised that I… that I don’t want anything else to do with you.”
Dorian winced. “What does that…”
“Let me ask you this,” Penelope began. “Say your sister does find a suitor this weekend. Say she does fall in love and gets married and establishes a home of her own. What happens then? What will you do once she leaves?”
The question brought fear to Dorian’s face. She saw it flash behind his eyes, and she felt it in his grip on her hand as he started to shake. “I… that doesn’t… once that happens, ask me then.”
She sighed and then, ever so gently, pulled her hand free. “And that is the point, isn’t it. You don’t know what you want and I’m not going to wait around to find out.”
“What…” Dorian hesitated, leaning back as her words settled on him. “What does that mean?”
“It means, Dorian, that once this party ends, I’m leaving. Going home. And once I do, I don’t expect to ever hear from you again.”
“Penelope…” He could not have looked more confused. “What about… you and… our agreement? The child. Do you not want…”
“No,” she said, her voice hardly a whisper. She felt her chest crack, a knife plunge through the opening and right into her heart. “Or rather, I have come to realize that a child won’t fix anything. That…” She laughed bitterly. “That wound runs far too deep.”
And that was the decision she had come to, one she had hoped she wouldn’t have to tell Dorian until after the weekend ended. Where a part of her still wished for a child, she felt that the act of conceiving the child would make things worse than they already were.
Better to go home, forget about this weekend and all that had happened, and work on herself.Whatever that means.
“No.” Dorian took her hand again. “You can’t… I won’t let you leave.”
She frowned. “What does that mean.”
That was when Dorian came for her. He pulled her into him, his spare hand moving to her waist and holding her tight, face bowing down and lips puckered as he moved for her lips.
There was a moment… a brief second… Penelope thought to close her eyes and accept the kiss. All the reservations she had about Dorian, the decision she had come to, the belief that they might work was he to give them a chance, and she very nearly forgot them because she wanted that kiss more than she wanted anything.
But she fought against that urge. Not because she wanted to but because she thought it was the right thing to do. As hard as that was to admit.
“No!” Penelope pulled away and pushed Dorian back. “Don’t…”
