“What is wrong? Why did you dash out of the house in such a fashion? What did I do?”
His eyes are urgent but steady. They search mine for answers. The bookstore is perhaps not the best place to have such a discussion. But I don’t care.
Let anyone hear. Let them write a thousand broadsheets about it.
“I told you,” I say, not meeting his eye, as I cling to him. “I am done. I dismiss you. I have tricked and deceived you and used you and it is only right that you have now tired of me. It is only what I deserve.”
“Damn it, woman,” he says. “I have not tired of you.”
“When I kissed you, on the desk,” I say, licking my dry lips. “You didn’t enjoy it.”
“Fuck, Annabelle. You know that isn’t how I feel. I want you all day, every day, without stopping.”
“It did not seem that way,” I whisper.
“Christ,thisis the source of your upset? Annabelle, you’ve been ill. You’re carrying our child. I was not sure what you wanted. Of course, if you want me to, I will bed you from dawn till dusk. I want you, always. I wake at night, Annabelle, hard and aching only foryou. But I can control myself. I only want you to feel happy with me. I only want you to feel safe.”
I cannot breathe. Every word is perfect—every word a rebuke to my own thoughts.
“It kills me,” he continues, “that other men treated you so wretchedly. I could tear them all limb from limb. If yourfather wasn’t already dead, I would kill him. I still have not decided whether to let Frank Holster live. Or Terrence French. The only thing that stops me from riding back to Trescott and annihilating both men is that I don’t want to be separated from you.”
I lean into him again. I can’t keep myself back. I kiss him madly, wanting him to understand how I feel.
He kisses me back and, to my great delight, this time he groans into my mouth. I can feel him stirring against my belly.
But he wrenches me away from him.
“You must talk to me, Annabelle. No kissing until you can tell me what is going on. Is it true what you said? About your plan when you first bedded me?”
“Yes,” I cry, tears leaking out of my eyes. “Now you know everything, What a monster I am.”
He laughs. “Annabelle, I am not angry.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps I should be,” he says. “But our meeting was so unconventional. And we have both changed so much. Let us not linger on the past.”
“You cannot truly be so forgiving. I planned to get with your child and then dismiss you. You, who always wanted to be a father.”
“And did you?” he asks. “Did you execute this plan?”
“I bedded you.”
“You did,” he says. “But did you dismiss me?”
“No,” I whisper. “I couldn’t.”
“Then I will not punish you for what you planned to do before you knew me. I could have been anyone or anything when you made your plan. With what you’ve known of men, I can hardly blame you for thinking that I’d be worth dismissing.”
I swallow. I realize that this sin that I have built up in my mind as the one Alfred wouldn’t be able to forgive is anything but.
He looks down. “Why are you holding that infernal book?”
“I found it here. I was so upset. I thought you didn’t want me.” I am crying again. It is embarrassing. But I can’t care enough to stop. “And then I found myself here. And this book. And I was reading it—and, oh Alfred, what is in this book is so dreadful.”
He smiles. “I know, my love. But do you see what is right next to it?”
I look and gasp. I pull the green volume off the shelf.
