“What?” she gasped. “After everything we’ve done together, been to each other this past week, you do not think this is a problem forusto handle?”
He sighed. “No, I don’t. Because he doesn’t want to talk to me, Merry. It’s complicated.”
“It’s complicated,” she repeated with a snort. “What I just saw was as simple as anything. He saw us together…without him. And he was left out and—”
“You know it’s more than that,” Peter interrupted. “You know it. That man may want me. He may even care for me more than he ever thought he’d allow himself to do. But he lovesyou. And he fears that I threaten everything in his life that has meaning.”
She blinked as she stared at Peter, his words sinking in. She sat back down hard on the bed’s edge and shook her head. “Elliot and I have been married for ten years…he’s never told me he loves me.”
Peter was quiet a moment. “We are very different men. If you had been mine, all those years ago, I would have told you every day. I would have written sonnets. I would have penned plays. I would have found word after word and sentence after sentence to draw it out for you.” He motioned toward the door. “Heis a man of action, not words. It’s why he puts a flower on your breakfast tray. Why a marquess fills a tub with hot water until he’s slick with sweat from the exertion. Why he brought your former lover here so you could have something that was stolen from you.”
Her breath hitched, stolen by the beautiful hope those words created.
Peter continued, “And that’s just a small selection of the actions of love I’ve seen Elliot show you since I’ve been here. I’m sure over those same ten years that were robbed from us, he’s done a thousand other things to reveal how much he loves you. Hasn’t he?”
She shivered as a world of memories flooded her. Moments of tenderness and support, moments of passion, times when Elliot had proven he could be trusted, gifts of all kinds that he’d showered over her. Acts of adoration and passion, not just for her body, but for her soul.
She covered her face with her hands. “Yes. Yes, he has shown me that he loves me, perhaps more than I have ever shown him.”
Peter touched her chin and tilted it toward him. His green eyes were so sad. “Somehow I doubt that, Merry.” He pushed to his feet. “I can’t hurt him. And I sure as hell don’t want to hurt you. Looking at his face a moment ago, I’ve failed at avoiding both those things. So I…I should leave.”
She caught her breath. “No!” she burst out.
“Yes,” he insisted. “Merry, you know it’s true. You and Elliot have to work out your lives, your relationship. And once you do…then perhaps we can talk about something more. But only if it’s right for both of you.” He glanced toward the door. “And I fear it might not ever be that.”
She bent her head, tears stinging her eyes, because she knew he was right in what had to happen. And because she feared he might be right about the future.
He cupped her chin and lifted it, brushing his lips to hers. “I will never regret this. And if he can hear it, I hope you’ll tell him the same.”
“I will,” she promised, wiping at the tears that were now falling down her cheeks. He smoothed them away with his thumbs and kissed her again, this time more deeply.
Then he stepped away. Turned away. And left her alone in the room, alone with her thoughts and alone with the realization of what she would have to do to fix all of this.
If she could.
* * *
Elliot
Elliot stumbled up the winding, sandy path that led to the cottage in the distance. He’d taken a long walk on the beach, not that he could have told anyone who asked about the beauty of the scenery. His hair was damp, so it must have rained, or he’d been hit by sea spray.
He recalled none of it.
Because his mind kept taking him, over and over, back to the moment when he’d walked into the bedroom to apologize to Peter and Merritt for his ill humor and found them in each other’s arms. His ears rang as they replayed their mutual declarations of unending love for each other.
And he’d known what they said was true, even before their overheard confessions. He wasn’t blind—he’d felt their connection from the very beginning. He’d nurtured it, for Christ’s sake, telling himself it would change nothing. That it would bring Merritt happiness to purge herself from what she had lost and might regret.
But to hear them say those words, so tangled in each other that they didn’t even hear the door open, that they didn’t see him…that had torn him to shreds.
He’d brought Peter in as a third to their marriage. And for a few beautiful moments he’d thought that relationship between them was equal. That they all had a part to play. But it turned out his greatest fear was true:hewas the third to a love that had never stopped.
Worse, he hadn’t just thought of that moment, playing over in slow motion through his addled mind. But his mind whispered what he had to do about it. What he had to do to make Merritt happy.
He stepped into the foyer, and immediately Merritt came rushing from the parlor where she’d apparently been waiting for him. She was dressed now, her hair pulled back loosely, her face lined with worry as she came to him and threw her arms around him. She was trembling as she clenched her hands along his shoulders and back.
“My God, I was worried sick,” she breathed. “Elliot, you’ve been gone over an hour.”
“Was it an hour?” he asked, pulling away from her even though he still felt the ghost of her warmth on his skin. How long would he feel it? Would it haunt him in the night, tingling like a phantom limb?
