No other baggage, no other responsibilities.
She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He turned to her sharply, surprise on his handsome face.
“That was an apology for the slap,” she said.
“You already apologized for that,” he said.
“I know. But… It was more than that. I imagine being up here with you all those years ago. If we were just kids, and we met, and there was nothing else.”
“But there is something else. So many other things, and that will always be true.”
“I know, but I just…”
“I don’t want to be my father,” he said, his voice stern. “Being here, being in this house it is…haunted. By memories that are both good and bad. I find myself burdened by them.”
“Why?”
“Because I loved him. And loving him was toxic. I won’t be that for my child. We can find a way to fix this. A way to serve the greater good. We are good at that, Emerald, aren’t we?”
“You just accused me of having no idea who I am if I don’t have a cause.”
“Perhaps…perhaps that is a good thing.” He turned away from her. “Emotion in all its many forms is messy. Love is a liar. But we could unite and make this better. We could…we can fix all this. For us. For our child.”
“I agree,” she said, moving away from him, just slightly.
She did agree. But it hurt her. She’d been so happy with him a moment ago. So carefree and now she felt like she was losing her grip on that happiness. This felt more normal. More what she was used to. This distance. This need for a wall between them.
But what he said was true.
“We have known each other all our lives, and yet we don’t know each other. We need to disentangle the difficult feelings between us. My father and mother’s version of marriage was toxic. Twisted up in their lust, in all the sharp feelings. When I took you as I did in Alabria…”
“I wanted you.”
He let out a rough sigh. “That isn’t better.”
Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe her desire was sick. Maybe it was as damaged as they were.
She wished she knew how her parents had come to love each other. What they’d shared. But she didn’t know because she’d been so young when they died. She had no blueprint. She had nothing.
Nothing except this ache inside her that she wanted so badly to make smaller. This ache that only ever seemed manageable when she was doing something. When she felt like she was fixing something.
These past few days here in the estate had been lovely, but she couldn’t live like this. She had to keep moving. They had to make a decision about their relationship, because they couldn’t stay here forever.
It wasn’t what she’d wanted him to say. But she’d…slapped him. It had been wrong of her. It had been because of the way things were between them—so disordered and filled with…
Emotion.
He was right. They had a common duty. One to their child. That had to be the mission.
“We must call a truce,” he said. “We are not enemies. We are to be parents.”
She nodded. “A family.”
He nodded, uneasy. “A family to me is difficult.”
“It doesn’t have to be. A family can be like mine. It can be happy. It can be…” She thought of her mother and father, laughing, reading to her and Onyx, holding them. The pain and anguish it created inside her almost took her breath away.
It didn’t have to hurt. She would learn from it. Let her change her. Let it make her a good mother. A good…
