I hate how my hope soars.“Okay.”
“Can you just come with me?”
I sigh.“Fine.”I let him lead me into his massive castle through the side door, then I walk into the main entry, and we just keep going.“Where are we headed?”
“Just wait.”But he’s smiling.
He leads me down a long hallway and into a room I’ve never seen.It’s massive, with carefully and intricately pieced wooden parquet floors.“It’s a ballroom.”
He nods.“Exactly.”
“And why—” But then I see it.On the far wall, there’s a whole setup, with flowers like the ones at home, but set up around a display table.
“Samantha, I know you haven’t known me long, and I know that this has moved really, really fast.You donothave to say yes right now.But since my dad already proposed to you the wrong way, I wanted to do it the right way.”He tugs me closer still, close enough that dozens of diamond rings are easy to see.“I know an heirloom family ring might not be your style, and I wanted you to know that I think your style is to pick your own style.I chose two dozen rings I thought were good enough for you, and you can pick whichever one you want.Or you can keep them all and wear them on the days you feel like wearing a particular ring.”He waves at the table, as though I’m not staring at hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry.
“Richard, this is too?—”
He shakes his head.“Let me finish first, please?I know it’s a lot.I’m a lot.My family’s a lot.”He drops to a knee and grabs one of my hands.“But Samantha, you are the most amazing woman I have ever met.You leap to defend anyone you love.You tame horses, you brave the terrifying unknown, and you have captivated me in every way.I know you told me you didn’t want kids because you’ve been hurt before, but honestly, that was the best news I ever could have gotten.Because it means that you and I, wewant the same thing.” He’s beaming at me.
I blink.“You have misunderstood.”
He shakes his head.“Samantha,youhave misunderstood.I know you’ve had problems in the past having kids.You may never be able to have a child, but I love you enough that I don’t care.”
My heart expands.“You—you don’t care?”
He shakes his head.“I just want to marry you.I want us to start a life together.”
Tears well in my eyes.“Really?”
He nods again.“And listen, things have changed so much in the past decade that you won’t believe it.I’ve talked to three of the top experts in the maternal-fetal medical field in the last two days, and they said even with PCOS, and even if you’ve had quite a few miscarriages before, there’s every chance to believe that with today’s new treatments, we would succeed?—”
I stiffen.“We would suc—” I choke, and I yank my hand away.“Richard.”My tears turn bitter, just like the taste in my mouth.“You weren’t listening to me.”
“Oh, believe me, I was.But I have alotof money we can throw at this, and when you have unlimited resources, I think you’ll find you can also have a very different outcome.Since you want kids as much as I do, I’m more than willing to take the risk that we may fail.I just want to try with you by my side.”
As much as my heart swelled, as much as my hope soared, it crashes and burns even more spectacularly, and it hurts more than I thought it could.“You did misunderstand,” I whisper.“Richard, I love you, too.I love you more than I thought I could love someone I’ve spent just a few months with.Like me, you seem to be filled with joy while riding.Like me, you care passionately about those around you.You’re generous, smart, hard-working, and kind.You’re considerate, and you’re handsome.You’re everything I didn’t think I’d ever find, everything I didn’t think I deserved.”
“Why does it feel like there’s a but coming?”
I can barely force out the next words.“But you weren’t listening to me.”
“I was.”He nods, his eyes intent.
“No, you heard what you wanted to hear.”
“Sam, I can almost recite everything you said.”He stares at me with a burning passion.“Nine miscarriages.”He chokes up.“I—I can’t even imagine the pain, the sorrow.I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“It nearly destroyed me.Every single time, it tore me open again, and every time, there was less of me to patch back together.”I shake my head, my voice the barest of whispers.“The hope every single time I was pregnant, and the praying.The desperate pleas I sent up to God.”My voice cracks.“I used to be very religious, you know.I prayed every morning and every night.I loved God, and I thought He loved me, and then, slowly but surely, I realized that He didn’t.The love I had for God, that love I had for myself, that faith I had in my life going right and things eventually being okay, it all died, slowly, painfully, and torturously.”
He’s frowning at me now, like he’s finally starting to understand.
“Richard, I can’t ever do that again.No matter how much money you have, no matter what doctors say or promise, I cannottry to have a baby again, not even a single time.I just can’t.You have no idea how bad I got, how much it gutted me, how much it changed and scarred me.Trying again would—it would break me beyond repair.”I pause, and I think through how to make this something he can understand.“As much as I love you, and I do love you a great deal, I love myself again, and that’s no small feat after what I went through.Hating yourself becomes an art form, when your own body keeps you from having the one thing you want.And now, after years of healing, I love myself too much to love you, if that’s what you need from me.”I step backward, stumbling a little and righting myself.
“But Samantha, if you could just listen to the doctors?—”
I shake my head, tears running freely down my face.“The fact that you’re still asking me that means you just don’t understand, and Richard, that’s it for us.It’s the end.”
When I turn to run, I can hear him coming after me for a moment, but by the time I escape the ballroom, it’s only my footfalls on the floor.I suppose even when he’s in love, the future Duke of Devonshire has some lines he won’t cross, and chasing a woman through his castle after being rejected must be one of them.
