It was like some surreal stand-off, neither of them wanting to blink first.
Across the lake a little girl threw oats onto the water. Ducks fought for them and other birds tweeted as they flew gracefully in from overhead. The little girl laughed and turned to her mother for more. She was four, maybe five. Briefly Thea wondered if that might have been her and their child, if things had been different. It all seemed so familial and idyllic—a stark contrast to the turmoil going on in her head and the thunderous pounding in her chest. It made her stand her ground all the more.
As if sensing the subtle change, Ben conceded. ‘All right—what do you want to know, Thea?
It wasn’t exactly encouraging a proper dialogue between them, but it was better than him shooting her down as he had in the past.
She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Why did you marry me, Ben?’
The words seemed to hang in the stillness of the park. Ben stopped shifting but didn’t immediately turn to face her. By the look on his face and the steel-shuttered set of his eyes it seemed his acquiescence of a moment ago had merely been his attempt to humour her.
‘You asked me what I wanted to know,’ she prompted urgently. ‘This is it.’
‘We’ve been through this. It was the only way to take care of you properly in a way the Army would accept.’
‘Yes, but then you slept with me. And ever since I’ve wondered if there was something more to your offer.’
‘I’m sorrier than you can ever imagine for that night.’ Ben gritted his teeth, disgust etched onto his features.
‘Are you?’ Thea asked desperately. ‘Only I think maybe you wanted me as much as I wanted you.’
His Adam’s apple bobbed but he said nothing for several long moments. ‘Of course I wanted you,’ he ground out at length.
‘Is that why you married me? Because even though you told me we weren’t a good match you still...obviously you didn’t love me, but lusted after me?’ She flushed red, embarrassed by the words.
‘I married you because Dan asked me to look after you and it was the only way to get Army approval,’ Ben repeated flatly. ‘He asked me to take care of you. He was my best friend. I agreed.
‘As simple as that?’ she snapped in frustration. ‘Really?’
But Ben didn’t bite back. ‘As simple as that.’
She swallowed down the sarcastic retort on her lips. What was it about Ben that had her feeling like a desperate twenty-one-year-old again? She was a successful, respected trauma doctor, so why, after five years, was it still so important to her to know if something more than just a casual promise to her brother had driven Ben to marry her? Something more emotional. The same something which had sparked between them when they’d slept together, perhaps?
Surely it hadn’t just been her imagination.
Judging by the way he shifted edgily, she was getting under his skin as much as he was getting under hers right now. Somehow it offered her some small comfort.
‘For heaven’s sake Thea.’ He tugged his hand through his hair irascibly. ‘What does this conversation gain for us? How we felt or didn’t feel—it doesn’t change anything.’
‘It does for me,’ Thea half-whispered. ‘It matters to me.’
‘Why? Why does it matter now?’
She faltered, licked her lips nervously. ‘Because in all these years you’ve never really told me what happened between you walking me home and saying how connected we were on that first date and then, almost within hours, telling me you weren’t interested.’ She had never been able to help wondering if she’d done something wrong.
The seconds ticked by between them and she was sure he must be able to hear her heart beating out of her chest.
‘Okay, I liked you,’ Ben shrugged, as if it was no big deal. As if she was no big deal. ‘But then I walked you up that driveway and Dan came to the door, bellowing his head off. The minute I realised you were his sister you were off limits, Thea. We’d just met, had one simple date—what did it matter?’
Thea shook her head. ‘It wasn’t just a simple date, though.’
Not for her—and, according to Ben, not for him either. He had been the first person she’d met who had seen through her bubbly façade to the uncertain, slightly bruised person underneath. Her brother had done an incredible job of making her feel loved, a secure and rounded person—but nothing had ever made up for losing her parents as a kid. Nothing had ever taken away the uncertainty that had brought.
Not completely.
And Ben had seen that. She’d never met anyone with whom she’d clicked so perfectly—either before or since. To someone who had perfected the art of letting people think they were getting close to her, Ben had been the first and only person who had ever slipped past her defences—effortlessly—and really got to her.
Ben shrugged, again reaching for the easiest explanation. ‘You were Dan’s sister—’