Gwenyth drew in a deep breath. There was no point in skirting around the issue of their marriage. Holding herself steady, she gazed into Sam’s eyes. “I can’t do it.”
Silence ensued for a drawn out moment. Finally, Sam asked, “why not?”
“Because you don’t want to marry me for the right reasons, Sam.”
“I don’t?”
“No.” Gwenyth glanced around the all-night wedding chapel Sam had dragged her to. In the end he had settled on a beautiful, cathedral-looking structure that would have been a lovely setting for a wedding had it not been operated by people who looked as if they heralded from another planet. She blew out a breath. “I have no idea why you want to marry me,” she mumbled, “but I’m certain it’s not for the right reason.”
“Oh?” Sam crossed his arms defiantly over his chest. “And just what is the right reason?”
Because you love me.
The words were on the tip of Gwenyth’s tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say them aloud. There were some things a man needed to discover on his own. Preferably before the wedding ceremony.
“Listen to me Gwen.” Sam shoved his hands into his pants pockets and regarded her uncompromisingly. “We’re not leavin’ here until we get married. You are not walkin’ out that door until you bear my name. How much clearer can I make that?”
Gwenyth raised her chin up a notch and glowered back at her so-called fiancé. “I’m not a child of five, Sam. You can hardly force me to marry you!”
Sam shrugged his hands out of his pockets and splayed them at either hip. “Just what is it you want from me, Gwen?” She was right and he knew it—he had no real way of forcing her into a marriage she didn’t want. The knowledge of it was making him desperate. “I’ve been wantin’ you for years, Gwen. I think about you all the time. I can’t bear to be apart from you.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I need you, Gwen. What more can I do to convince you that I’ll make you a good husband?”
Gwenyth stared at Sam with sadness in her eyes. She needed the one thing he seemed incapable of giving, the one thing he could have said to change her mind. She needed his love.
Against her better judgment, Gwenyth let go of her pride and spoke from her heart. “I’m in love with you Sam,” she whispered with thick emotion in her voice. “I’ve been in love with you all of my life. But are you in love with me?”
Sam said nothing. He peered at Gwenyth moodily as if he hated being forced into this vulnerable position. Never in all of his life had he actually said those three little words of “I love you” to a woman. The three words that Gwen most wanted to hear. The three words he stubbornly refused to dwell upon until he was certain, absolutely certain, she really did feel genuine love for him back.
It was easy for a woman to say she loved a man. Women told Sam as much all the time. Hell, he’d heard those words from women who’d spent less than a full night in his bed. True, Gwenyth had worshipped him as a child, but she was an adult woman now. Hardly the worshipping type anymore—not that Sam wanted her to be. But how could he genuinely believe she loved him when she’d been running fast and furiously away from him since the moment they’d been reunited?
Whether or not Gwenyth truly loved him didn’t matter to Sam, though. He needed Gwen, couldn’t bear to be without her, so he’d take what he could get just now. They could spend the rest of their lives figuring out the rest.
Gwenyth took Sam’s silence as damning. Holding her tears at bay, she forced a smile onto her face as she handed him back the bouquet of flowers. “I can’t marry you, Sam,” she intoned gently. “I’m sorry.” With that, she pivoted on her heel with the intention of walking away.
“Goddamn it, Gwen!” Sam whirled her back around to face him. His jaw tense and rigid, he shook her shoulders slightly. “Don’t you give up on us!”
“Sam, I—”
“No!” Sam blew out a ragged breath and refused to let Gwenyth leave the chapel. He gentled his voice and pleaded to her with his eyes. “If there is anybody in this whole godforsaken world that can actually love me, Gwenyth Marie, it has to be you. And if there is anybody here who can teach me what it means, I know you’re the one.”
Gwenyth’s eyes rounded. The jade of them sparkled tremulously. “Sam, I…”
“Please, baby.” Sam shook his head helplessly. “I need you.”
Gwenyth stilled. It was nice indeed to see the depth of emotions in Sam’s eyes, to hear him say that he needed her and know he meant it, but presently she was latching onto the other thing he’d said. Was it possible? Did Sam Tremont really believe that no one loved him?
Gwenyth chewed on her lip as she considered the very real possibility that he was being honest. Even as a child, Sam had always remained somewhat aloof, joining the Jones family without ever becoming a real part of it. She had been too young to dwell on his actions overmuch, but when she looked back at it now, as a woman, she recalled a sad, scared little boy whose father was dead and whose mother had never cared for anyone but herself. Sam had relished his time with her family, perhaps even coveted it, but he had always held a part of himself back, like a poverty-stricken child gazing through the window of a candy shop, knowing he’d never be able to afford the ambrosia it offered.
And now here Gwenyth stood, next to the man she loved, and she had it within her grasp to make Sam a real member of the Jones family. To give Sam Tremont a place he could finally call home. To give him the chance to realize that there were people who loved him, not for what he could give them, but because he was simply Sam. And then, perhaps, he would realize that he loved her back.
That quickly, Gwenyth’s decision was made. She wouldn’t back away from this challenge. What had begun as a sad day, had evolved into the most profoundly poignant moment of her life. Today, here and now, she would give them both a chance to grasp for the moon and the stars together. “Yes, Sam.” She reached out for his hand and stroked it gently. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
* * * * *
Sam gazed toward the hotel room bed that his wife lay sleeping on and felt his heartbeat pick up all over again. Gwenyth was his. Somehow or another he’d done it, he’d claimed her. And he was already loving every last minute of it.
It was strange to Sam, the small things that now held a great deal of meaning. Like watching his wife sleep. His wife, he thought possessively. No other man, for as long as Sam lived and breathed, would ever see Cupcake like this again. It aroused him just knowing it.
Hell, Sam mused, it seemed that everything had been arousing him in the whopping six hours of their marriage. He’d even gotten a hard-on from signing the hotel’s guest registry as “Mr. & Mrs. Sam Tremont”. And when they’d gotten to their suite and he’d seen the shiny glint of gold from the band on her ring finger…well, Sam could honestly say that he had loved his new wife’s body well and proper on their wedding night. Twice already to be exact.
