Loving the woman he wasdestinedto be with.
He was not a man who looked to the heavens for answers, or believed in cosmic powers beyond his understanding. Logic and reason were his driving forces. But surely, there was some type of fate at play. Some kind of destiny, decades in the making, which had brought him and Joanna to this spot in the world at this precise moment in time.
And who was he to argue with the stars?
“There.” Sliding the last button of her dress into place, he kissed her bare shoulder. “You’re ready.”
“For what?” she asked, turning towards him in a rustle of silk and taffeta. Her eyes were luminous in the dim light, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly swollen. She was a goddess brought to life, an earthly Athena of courage, and wit, and daring.
“To be married.” It wasn’t until Kincaid glanced around for his jacket that he realized he still hadn’t found his spectacles. The room blurred, then abruptly came into vivid focus when Joanna jumped in front of him.
“Married?” she repeated.
“Indeed.” Ah, there was his jacket. Draped over the arm of a chair. But he didn’t dare reach for it. Not when Joanna was glaring at him as if he’d just eaten all the marzipan. “Is that a problem?”
“Perhaps my memory is the problem, as I do not remember even being engaged.” Those luminous eyes narrowed. “When did you ask me to marry you, Kincaid? The last I recall, you had ended our agreement and told me I should prepare to return to America.”
The icy shard of glass in her tone was his first inkling that whatever he was attempting to do, it wasn’t going very well. The finger drilling into his chest was the second. “I, ah—”
“I told you that I loved you, and you told me—what was it? Oh, yes—that our personal feelings areirrelevant. What has changed between then and now?”
Of its accord, his gaze slipped to the pink sofa.
Joanna bristled.
“You want to marry me out of some outdated philosophy that a woman is ruined once she has lost her virginity, is that it?” she asked.
“Yes. No,” he corrected hastily when her eyes flashed a deep, dark blue. “No, that’s not it at all. That is to say, I would do right by you, Joanna.”
He needed better words.
Therightwords.
He wanted to tell her how much he loved her. How much he cared. How much she meant to him. But when he opened his mouth, those words did not come. They were trapped inside of him. Stuck beneath the keystone that, although cracked and battered, still stood. The final barrier between keeping his heart safely guarded…and entrusting Joanna with it.
“You would do right by me,” she said dubiously. “What does that mean?”
“I…” Frustrated, he plunged his hands into his hair. Why couldn’t he take that last step? Why couldn’t he commit himself in the way she wanted him to? What was so bloody wrong with him that he was unable to tell the woman he loved what she needed to hear? What shedeservedto hear? “Joanna, I…”
Her gaze softened. “Yes, Kincaid?”
He drew a breath. Maybe…maybe he didn’t have to give his heart away all at once. Surely, that would be safer. A piece now, and a piece when they married. A piece when he finally found the words to tell her that he loved her. A piece when they had their first child.
That was better, he decided as the knot of tension in the middle of his temple uncoiled ever-so-slightly. That was best.
For both of them.
“I have always honored my obligations,” he began. “I know a priest who can marry us tomorrow, if that is what you would like.”
“What I would like is to not be thought of as anobligation.”
Kincaid frowned. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“But it’s what you said.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she began to back slowly towards the door. “More than that, it is what youhaven’tsaid that tells me everything I need to hear. I am not a pretty vase to be put on a shelf. And I am not a duty to be fulfilled. I am a woman with hopes and dreams and aspirations that go far beyond being some man’sobligation. I believed you, of all people, saw that.” Her voice thickened. “Goodbye, Kincaid.”
It wasn’t until after Joanna had left, closing the door quietly behind her, that Kincaid understood a heart torn into pieces was still broken.
*
