More Than a Convenient Marriage?

“You’re not keeping any?”

She understood his surprise. He knew as well as she did that designers had lined up to custom-make haute couture for Cassandra O’Brien. They were gorgeous one-of-a-kinds—but they were Cassandra’s style, not Rowan’s.

“Where would I wear them?” she dismissed. “No, they’re works of art, so I’ll let them benefit an artist by using the money to set up a trust for my father.” She glanced warily at him, bracing against his judgment, hurrying to clarify. “So I won’t have to resort to tasteless appearance fees or anything like that again.”

If she had hoped for an approval rating she was disappointed. He scowled, seeming both thunderstruck and filled with incomprehension.

“You’re not keeping any of it?”

It being the collection of her mother’s possessions, she assumed.

“Well, a few things, of course.” She shrugged, pretending it didn’t bother her how judicious—ruthless, even—she’d had to be. The boxes for the thrift store were filled with chotchkies that had no value but had been in her life as long as she could remember. She would have kept them for her own home if she had had one. “I kept some snapshots and Mum’s hand mirror. The dish she put her jewelry in at night. Things like that.”

“What about her jewelry?” He leapt on the word. “Auction?”

Rowan pressed her lips together. “I wanted to ask you about that.”

“I’m not going to contest ownership, if that’s what you’re worried about. Olief would have given those things to Cassandra without any expectation of getting them back. If you want to auction them to give yourself a nest egg, do.”

“I don’t.” She tried to suppress the testiness that edged into her. “I’m not interested in profiting from gifts that marked important occasions in their life. Besides, we won’t know if they’re mine or my father’s until the will is read. I just wanted to ask you to take responsibility. I don’t have a safety deposit box or anywhere else secure.”

His stare grew inscrutable.

Rowan was hugely sensitive to the air of intensity gathering around Nic like dark clouds—especially because she didn’t know how to interpret it.

“I’ve sorted Olief’s things as well,” she prattled on. “Just recommendations, of course. He has some gorgeous tuxedos that would fit you with a minimum of tailoring.” She couldn’t help stealing a swift tallying inventory of his potent physique, turned out professionally for telecommuting in a striped button shirt and tie. “I’d love to include the vintage one with those things going to London if you’re okay with that?”

“Rowan, I told you to take what you wanted, not...” His jaw worked as he scanned the neatly stacked bins and boxes. “I expected you to identify and keep what amounts to Cassandra’s estate—not disperse everything to charity and...” He shot his hand into his pocket where it clenched into a fist.

“I can’t take much. Where would I store it?”

“But you could sell things for a down payment on a flat and tuition for a degree. Why would you keep yourself as broke as you were when you walked into this house? Are you thinking about your future at all? What do you intend to live on?”

She frowned, not liking how defensive he made her feel for a choice she’d already made. It was a risk, yes, but one that actually gave her a sense of excitement.

“Frankie has—”

“Do not let Frankie exploit you,” Nic said, cutting her off. “I’ve cleared your debts with him so don’t let him bully you. And don’t worry about owing me. Forget that. Forget the credit cards from before. I was being a bastard because I was angry. That’s in the past. We know each other better now.”

“Do we?” He still thought her capable of selling off possessions for rent the way her mother would have. But she was taking a real job—one that was temporary, but paid a weekly wage and would get her on her feet. She was trying to act like an adult while an unrelentingly immature part of her clung to a rose-hued dream that her efforts at showing maturity would raise her in his estimation, that somehow he’d begin seeing her with new eyes. Eyes that warmed with affection.

“I know your love for Olief was genuine, Rowan. I believe he was looking out for you in every way he could because he felt as protective as any father.” Nic rubbed the back of his neck. Suffering angled across his face as he added, “I think you helped him become capable of experiencing and showing those sorts of feelings because you draw things out of people in a way I never could. I wouldn’t even know how to try.”

Tenderness filled her. You do, she wanted to insist, because he provoked intense feelings of many kinds in her. But her throat was filled with the breath she was holding. Was he saying that she’d taught him to experience deeper feelings than he’d ever expected? She searched his troubled brow.

He tensed his mouth, broodingly. “I’m convinced Olief would have made provision for you and your mother. If he didn’t he should have, and I’ll honor that. What you had before—accommodation, living expenses—I’ll go back to covering them.”

Her heart landed jarringly back to earth. Rowan reminded herself to draw a breath before she fainted. It came in like powdered diamonds, crystalline and hard. It took her a moment to find words.

“Let me guess. You’ll even let me grace your bed while you pay those expenses?” The bitterness hardening her heart couldn’t be disguised in her flat, disillusioned voice.

“That’s not how I meant it.” His shoulders tensed into a hard angle.

“You’re going to pay my expenses and not want to sleep with me?” she goaded.

His bleak gaze flicked from hers. “I can’t say I don’t want you. It would be a lie. The wanting doesn’t stop, no matter what I do.”

And it made him miserable, she deduced. No mention of love or commitment either.

Rowan told herself not to let his reluctant confession make a difference—especially when he was standing there not even looking at her, his bearing aloof and remote, but her heart veered toward him in hope anyway.

She lifted a helpless palm into the air. “It’s constant for me, too, but—”

“Then why can’t we continue what we started?” He pivoted his attention to her like a homing device.

“Because I don’t want to be your mistress!”

He rocked back on his heels, his jaw flexing like he’d taken a punch.

“I don’t want to be any man’s mistress,” she rushed on. “I want a relationship built on equality. Something stable that grows roots. Even if—” Her words were a long walk onto thin ice. She looked down at the pen she had unconsciously unwound so the center of its barrel fell open and parts were dropping out. “Even if it doesn’t include children, I still want something with a future.”

She looked up, silently begging for a sign that he wanted those things, too.

His eyes darkened to obsidian. His fists were rocks in his pockets.

“You’re right, of course,” he said, after a long, loaded minute. “All we had was a shelter in a storm, not something that lasts beyond the crisis. I’ll never again judge Olief for caving in to physical relief during a low point.”

The words impaled Rowan. She nodded jerkily, because what else could she expect him to say? That he had miraculously developed a deeper appreciation for her place in his life? At best he was nursing a sense of obligation toward her. It was the last sort of debt she wanted to make him feel.

“I’m going for a walk.” She needed to say goodbye to Rosedale. It was the final item on her to-do list.

“Stay back from the water.”

A bitter laugh threatened, but Rowan swallowed it and left.

* * *

Rowan caught a lift with the courier in the morning, giving Nic about three seconds to react to her leaving. She walked into his office, said she could save him a trip to the landing and asked where were those papers that needed signing.

No prolonged goodbye. Just a closed door, the fading hum of an engine, then silence that closed around him like a cell. Her scent lingered in a wisp of almond cookies and sunshine, dissipating and finally undetectable.

Nic stood up in disbelief, drawn to the window where the vehicle had long since motored up the track on the side of the hill and disappeared. He had been girding himself for an awkward leave-taking, expecting something uncomfortable in front of the passengers waiting for the ferry. He had thought they’d have a quiet day today, but he’d been sure she’d spend it here. With him.

His limbs felt numb as a graveled weight settled into his abdomen.

Unconsciously he found himself searching the grounds for her lissom silhouette. But she wasn’t at the gazebo, or in the swing under the big oak, nor among the rows of grapevines or even taunting him from the rocky outcropping at the beach. Yesterday he’d watched her wander the estate for hours, often looking back at the house. He’d thought she was waiting to see if he’d join her, but he’d been too disturbed by their discussions in the breakfast room. Too stripped of his armor.