Page 135 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8
Did she remember? Perhaps not all of it, but somewhere in that brain of hers she knewthatwas their way. The rules of their marriage, which was designed to have a ‘get-out’clause. He could tell her about the rules of their marriage.His rules.The contract. But their contract had already expired. By every rule in the playbook, they should already be divorced. But they weren’t. They were here.Still married.
And how did he explain that? Why he’d waited for the divorce papers to arrive. Why he hadn’t initiated the proceedings himself.
He couldn’t explain it. Not even to himself.
She was not his mother. She hadn’t been looking for a bigger payout. She hadn’t been trying to gain the upper hand, wrestle back power.
Emma had left him by choice; he understood that now, but he also understood she’d come back to him because she hadnochoice. And she was right; not knowing the reason she’d left was a heavy thing. He ached with it too.
But did it matter? As he’d said to her, they could speculate, but it would amount to nothing but more speculation.
The truth of it was neither of them had demanded a divorce. They were still married.
But it was all she could see, wasn’t it?
Marriage.
Everything she’d never wanted.
Untilhim.
He could tell her the truth of them, that they didn’t do emotions, it was a marriage purely for passion, but why would he tell her? Ultimately those things hadn’t made her stay before...
‘If a divorce is what you require,’ he conceded roughly, ‘a divorce is what you shall have, Emma.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Of course.’ He stroked the pad of his thumb along her jawline. ‘Why would we remain married if we no longer wanted one another?’
‘Exactly,’she husked, and he heard the unspoken realisation between them that divorce hadn’t really been an option before because their marriage hadn’t been over.
It still wasn’t.
‘I think I want to go to bed.’ Her eyes glazed over, a mix of exhaustion and desire. His body reacted instinctively. His groin tightened. ‘To sleep,’ she clarified quickly. ‘Alone.’
He didn’t want to sleep.
He didn’t want to spend a night in this house without her beside him. In his bed. In his arms. It was the reason he hadn’t been back here since the day he’d found her gone.
His mind flashed with every moment he’d told her about. The beginning of them. The confident Emma who had touched him and met his mouth with the same ardent fever within moments of their first touch. The woman who’d embraced their physical connection as readily as he had. As if it gave them air. The woman who’d become his wife.
Every moment of their relationship had been borne from their physical connection. They never spoke about the past, what had made them the people who had met at that charity event. They’d only gone forwards, dived head-first into each other’s body and stayed there.
Curiosity bloomed where it shouldn’t. What madethisEmma hesitate where she’d never hesitated before to welcome his kiss? His touch? Invite him into her bed? Any bed? What had happened to her between the ages of twenty-two to twenty-six to turn her into the woman he’d married?
He knew his wife. Every imperfection. Every sensitive spot. The spot behind her ear he let his breath heat and she would melt for him as he moved his breath, his lips, his mouth down and over her throat to her breasts.
But not...her.
In her mind they’d never kissed, never had sex.
It was all backwards. Upside down.
The urge to make her remember it all, to remember the feel of his mouth on hers, was overwhelming.
He knew she needed words. Needed reassurance before any of that. And he’d give it to her.
‘Emma,’ he breathed. ‘Understand this. You’re my wife. I’m your husband. This doesn’t give me any rights to you. I won’t take anything from you that you don’t want to give. Everything I said stands whether you invite me into your bed tonight, tomorrow or never,’ he said, because he knew that she needed to know in this upside-down world of theirs, she was safe. She had choices.