“I envisioned the worst sort of fate as your wife. Sorrowful and bleak, and it’s only because I did not know you, Gregory,” she entreated with that expressive gaze. Had he truly believed her eyes blank. They were mirrors into her soul. “If I didn’t believe you to be cruel and shallow, I would never have married you.”
“That does not make sense, Daria,” he said, his voice raised, his control breaking.
“Because I lacked true knowledge, my reason filled the void with the worst possible conclusion. I was not imagining falsely—I was reasoning from incomplete premises.”
“Descartes,” he said between his teeth. “Brenna would be proud.”
He realized his misstep too late.
Her eyes widened. “See! This is who you are.”
This was spiraling. He fought to retain a hold over it.
“A man familiar with Descartes,” he drawled, fighting with his whole soul for a shred of nonchalance. “Let me assure you, it is part of all good gentlemen’s edification.”
She of course, ignored him.
“I was so focused on the end and assuming my whole life was twisted,” she spun her finger in a quick rotating circle. “Up with death through the curse, I failed to see marrying you was never about me dying.”
Do not ask.
“What was it about then, Daria?”
“It was about me living and loving fully before I die, with the one I’m meant to spend my days with.”
Argyll stared.
She nodded slowly. “You.”
Something dangerous, more tempting than any sin of the flesh, stirred within.
His mind recoiled. “Itoldyou this would happen.”
Daria nodded; sending her dark hair cascading over her shoulder. “You were right.”
In addition to her ability to apologize, his wife could also concede when wrong.
He would have laughed if his body allowed for any emotion other than abject horror.
Is it horror…or is it fear…
“But you were wrong in believing I’d fall for you for superficial reasons.” Resplendent in her nudity, Daria drifted closer; she both Venus and Eve, offering all he yearned for.
No! Not her love. Her body.
“I am in love with you for the man you are, Gregory. The one who never corrects the world from the terribly wrong way in which they’ve come to see you. You are a good man. A man who had a terrible father, but who became a great man because of it. Not a wastrel.”
“Do you know how many women I’ve fucked? How many sad wives I seduced. The men I’ve made cuckolds of?”
Unflappable, she shook her head. “I don’t know those numbers, nor do I need to.” Daria stole his damp hands with her cool ones. “I know the reason you did those things, and inside you know, as well, Gregory.” She squeezed him tightly.
Argyll tore free of her.
Argyll banged his head repeatedly against his hands. “You are not in love with me. You are in love with fucking me.”
“No.”
They both frowned.
