Page 34 of Savage Love

My teeth sink into my lower lip as I fight back another well of emotion. I had a reason for wanting to walk through the house again—I wanted to look for something in each room that could be a part of our future here, to show Levin here what our life could look like. I hadwantedthis, to see a glimpse of him the way he would be if this were something we had both wanted all along, not something we’re stumbling blindly through, trying to find a way to make it work.

I had, if I’m being honest with myself, wanted to see what he was like when hehadwanted this. Before he had decided he would never have it again.

I don’t know if it helps or hurts now.

“Come on.” I clear my throat, walking back out into the hall. “That room can be your office,” I tell him, pointing at the room with an open door that’s down from the guest bathroom. It’s a medium size, with a window that looks out on the other side of the house. “You can do whatever you like with that—decorate it however you want.”

“Giving me permission?” Levin grins at me again. “I’d already decided you could make all the decorating decisions, but I’ll take one room.”

I narrow my eyes at him, enjoying the playful lilt to his voice. “Depending on what your taste is, maybe more than one room. And the bedroom down here can be the guest room.”

“Sounds fine to me.”

We walk back upstairs, where the other three bedrooms are and a second extra bathroom. There’s a big master suite and then two good-sized bedrooms with a bathroom between them. “This one should be the nursery,” I suggest when we step into the first room. “It’s the closest to ours.”

“That makes sense.” Levin turns around, looking. “Plenty of room in here. What color were you thinking of painting it?”

My throat closes up again, a lump threatening to choke me. “I don’t know,” I manage finally. “I haven’t gotten that far. I thought something neutral. Yellow maybe—something sunny and bright.”

“Or sage green?” Levin suggests, turning back to face me. “I always liked that color.”

I’m so startled by how easily he’s contributing to the conversation that I can’t answer for a second. My hesitation seems to spark his, and a strange look passes over his face, as if he’s realized what he’s done. That for a moment, he forgot to be anything other than excited over the possibility of decorating our baby’s nursery in this room.

“What about the other room?” He turns away, looking towards the door, and I feel my heart sink again. I can feel the tension emanating off of him,feelhim closing himself off again. Frustration wells up in me, making me grit my teeth.

I don’t want to be angry with him. Not today, and not over something I decided to do myself, knowing that it would likely be a lost cause. That Levin will always defer to me when it comes to decisions about our life—at least these kinds of decisions, like what house to live in and where—because it’s more my life than his. Because he’s going to spend all of it trying to make up for what he thinks he’s taken from me.

When, in fact, he’s given me so much that I wanted.

“The other room—” I hesitate. “I don’t know. Maybe a room for the baby when they’re older. In case—” I swallow hard. “In case we need the nursery for another one.”

I see his shoulders tense, and I wince. Having one child was never in Levin’s plan, so I can’t imagine he’s given much, if any, thought to a second. “I loved having a sister growing up,” I whisper softly. “Our baby might like that, too. Or a brother.”

He lets out a long, slow sigh. “Maybe,” he says finally, still not looking at me. “We’ll just have to see what happens, I suppose.”

It’s not the definitenothat I’d been afraid of, but it’s not what I wanted to hear, either. He steps out of the room, opening the door, and crosses the hall to the master bedroom, and I follow him, trailing a little behind as I try to keep a grip on my emotions.

“We could put another little reading nook in here,” I suggest. Anything to try to steer the conversation away from things that make me want to cry. “It would be so cozy in the winter, especially with the fireplace–”

The room is huge, with another of those big bay windows overlooking the backyard, and a little balcony leading off of it. There’s a fireplace, something I’ve never had in a bedroom before, and the idea of cozying up here in the cold with a book and a warm fire sounds heavenly. There’s an attached bathroom with a large whirlpool tub and a separate shower, as nice as any hotel suite we’ve stayed in. I try not to summon the memory of Levin and me in the bath in that last hotel room in Rio.

He’s silent for a long moment, staring off into the distance, turned away from me. “Levin?” I ask finally, my voice a hesitant whisper, and when he turns to face me, his expression cuts me to the core.

It’s so conflicted that I can’t stand it. I can see everything that he’s struggling with in the brief moment before he manages to clear some of it away—and I realize that hedoeswant this. That standing here with me, imagining our future in this house, is making him happy.

And it’s also making him feel so guilty that it’s tearing him apart.

I know I’m not supposed to go to him. He hasn’t so much as kissed me, other than on the cheek, since our wedding night. But I can’t stop myself. Seeing him like this is tearingmeapart, because regardless of what he or Isabella or anyone else thinks, I do love him. I know it down to the core of my being, with a certainty that I’m not sure I’ve ever had for anything else. I love him, and I can’t stand to see him in this kind of pain, any more than I could stand to see him in pain in Rio when I nursed him back to health.

So I cross the distance between us, my shoes clicking on the wooden floor, and before he can stop me, I go up on my tiptoes and press my hand against his cheek, my lips brushing over his.

“This is our house,” I whisper softly against his mouth. “This is the one I want.”

This is the one I want.I mean something other than the house, too. I mean him, and our life, and our baby—everything that I have with him, and I’m not sure at first if he realizes it. I feel him stiffen when I kiss him, and I brace myself for the moment when he pushes me away, when he tells me that we can’t do this.

Thathecan’t do this.

I feel a shudder go through him, and I know what it means. I’ve felt it so many times before, the physical way that he fights with himself when he’s trying not to give in to me, in to what he and I both want.

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