“Salvage?” she shot out as she swung around to face him, reinvigorated by the coming confrontation. “There is nothing between us tosalvage.” A confounded silence stretched between them. “How long have you known Percy is alive?”
The question seized control of the room, sinking in and settling between them where it would remain forever. The flummoxed expression clouding his features told her that he didn’t understand that yet.
“Ten years,” he stated flatly. He sounded . . . unapologetic.
Like that, Mariana’s anger returned like an Arctic fury. It was an anger that would sustain her through this conversation, through this night, and on through to London. “How could you keep it a secret?”
Nick grabbed his shirt and shrugged it onto his shoulders. A pang of loss for the sight of his gorgeous body shot through her. It sank in that this was really happening. Impossibly, a part of her had been hanging on to the hope that there were correct words to fix this situation—that he and she could be salvaged.
“It wasn’t my secret to tell,” he said, pitching his body into a deceptively lazy sprawl in the chair opposite hers.
“Olivia is my sister,” she began righteously, “and I am your—”
“Wife? Make up your mind.” His gaze held hers. “Percy was in too deep, and I couldn’t risk exposing him. Then time kept passing, and he kept staying buried. It was never my place to tell.”
“How could you be so ruthless?” she fired back. “Are you so without feeling? Are you so without humanity?”
He pushed to a stand, impatience evident.
“Do not come near me,” she stated, slowly enunciating each word.
He stopped cold. “Percy has naught to do withus.”
“How can you say that? After all the secrets and lies, I could never trust you.”
“Percy was part of a life that had naught to do with you.” He took a step forward. “A life I’m leaving behind.”
“Why bother? You will never change.”
“I’m not saying I shall.” He took another step forward. “You are in my blood, Mariana. That will never change. I’m done fighting it.”
“I’m in your blood? How dare you speak those words to me? That has never been our problem. The problem is that I’ve never been in your heart.”
Another step brought him within a few feet of her. She had only to reach out to bring her body into contact with his. But what would that accomplish?
“You want me, too.”
So bold were his words. She could ignore or deny them, but neither would do. Only the truth would serve this night. “I’ve wanted you too much,” she confessed.
His eyes searched hers. “Is it ever too much?”
“There is nothing substantial about you. Nothing I can hold onto. You always slip through my fingers.”
She stood and made to step past him. She must leave. There was nothing more to say.
Her flight, however, was arrested when he said, “I love you.”
Contained within his gaze was more emotion than she would have thought possible: anger, fear, and love. Yes, love. How had she never noticed before? And now that she had?
It was too late. Sometimes love wasn’t enough.
“I know,” she said. “But here’s what else I know about you: that other life, too, is in your blood, and I can’t compete with it. I leave Paris at dawn.”
“This isn’t what you want.”
“Perhaps not,” she returned, “but it is what I need.”
She turned and strode through the doorway without a single backward glance. She had some packing to complete and a restless night to suffer through. Then it was on to London . . . And on with her life. The same life she’d been leading these last ten years. And if a little voice protested that it wasn’t possible? That Paris had changed her? She would pack that away as well.
