“Yes, we have,” she said, pulling her hand free of his. “But it’s not enough for me. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because I love you, Dave.” She took a deep breath, blew it out again and gave him a sad smile. “I didn’t mean to, it just happened.”
A quick flash of something bright and amazing shot through Dave in a split second before his brain kicked into gear and rejected the emotion. He’d learned long ago that “love” was just a word. He stiffened. Looking down into her face, he read the truth in her eyes and took an emotional step back. “Love wasn’t part of the agreement.”
“No,” she said sadly, “it wasn’t.”
He glanced over her head at the crowd in the room behind them, away from her eyes, giving himself a chance to take a mental breath. To get a grip. It didn’t help much. “I’m not interested in love, Mia. I told you that from the beginning.”
“Yeah, you did.” Mia shook her head so hard, one of the feathers in her hair came free and floated to the floor. “I should have listened. But I love you anyway.”
He scraped one hand across the back of his neck, then looked into those eyes of hers again. “Stop saying that,” he muttered darkly. “People say that damn word so easily.”
“I don’t,” she told him flatly. “I’ve never said ‘I love you’ to a man before. Ever.”
He gritted his teeth. “Love wasn’t part of our deal.”
“And the deal is all-important?” she asked. “Rules? Contracts?”
“Without them, you’ve got nothing,” he countered, his voice harsh and deep. “Love is a setup for the letdown, that’s all. Throw that word out and you’re supposed to forget common sense. You’re supposed to believe—” he broke off and caught himself before saying “—you believe promises and one by one they’re broken.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Love,” he snapped and wondered when this whole thing had gone to hell. “My mother believed. My father said he loved her. Us.” He laughed shortly and heard the sharp, ragged edges of it. “Didn’t stop him from leaving. Walking away, leaving Mom to survive however she could. We lost our home. We lost everything. I became the man of the house when he took off. I was eleven. I stopped being a kid and watched my mother’s world crumble around her. Because we believed in love.”
“Dave…” She reached out to him but he stepped back. “That’s awful and I’m so sorry…”
“Didn’t ask for your pity.”
“Sympathy, not pity,” she corrected. “And your mom is in love again. Do you think Mike will break her heart?”
“He better damn well not.”
Shaking her head, Mia said, “He won’t. He’s a good man and he loves her. Your mom is willing to take a chance again, so why can’t you?”
God, it was hot in there. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He’d spilled his guts and she was picking them up and handing them to him. And Dave didn’t have a damn answer for her. He didn’t understand how his mother could trust again. Believe again. He only knew that he couldn’t. He wanted Mia. Cared for her more than anyone he’d ever known. But if he used the word “love,” he’d lose control.
“I won’t give you promises, Mia,” he told her, gathering the threads of his control. “I’ll give you a contract. My word. In writing.”
“Without the promise, the contract means nothing, Dave. Don’t you see that?”
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded, reaching for her, grabbing hold of her shoulders and dragging her close. “We had a deal. You weren’t supposed to bring emotions into this.”
She laughed a little, but it was a broken sound. “Pesky humans, you just can’t trust them to keep their hearts out of things.”
“Damn it, Mia, I don’t want to lose you. We can still have something good together.”
“No. But we could have had something great.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Looks like I was wrong about a lot of things,” she whispered. Slowly, she pulled the huge diamond ring from her finger and held it out to him. He stiffened, gritted his teeth against the unfamiliar swell of helplessness filling him and took the ring from her, closing his fingers over the cold, hard stone.