Because he’d loathe hurting her, he swiftly masked his immediate rejection. Compassion softened his handsome features, and he stepped forward and reached out for her. “Jane, I’m so sorry.”
She stumbled away, bumping into the wall behind her. “No, don’t touch me.”
He flinched, but at least he lowered his hands to his sides. “I said when I married you that…love wasn’t on the table.”
Her stomach clenched to hear the way he could barely pronounce the word “love” in her presence.
“Yes, you did.” It was an effort to keep her voice steady. Her eyes were dry enough to sting. She felt as desiccated and lifeless as desert sand.
He made a bewildered gesture. “Are you sure?”
“Don’t insult me,” she said sharply.
“It’s just…”
“It would be so much easier if I didn’t love you, I know.” She swallowed to relax a throat tight enough to hurt. “I’ve spent weeks telling myself the same thing. But it’s no use.”
He paused before he spoke, and she saw he started to connect the clues to how she’d changed. “This is why you’ve been…distant.”
During these last weeks, they’d come together over and over, but he was right. Now she had something precious and fragile to protect, caution smothered all generosity and openness. And without generosity and openness, the joy they’d found in one another had swiftly shriveled away. “Yes.”
“What can I do? I hate to think of you being unhappy.”
She dredged up the courage to speak the truth. “You could love me back.”
In all this vile, agonizing morning, the vilest, most agonizing moment was this, when his face inexorably closed against her. “That’s not possible.”
She spread her hands and spoke urgently, knowing she wasted the effort. “We could be so happy together, Hugh, if you let go of your hopeless longing. We get on well. We want one another. We have a similar view on the world. Together we can build a fulfilled life, a family, a future where we grow old together in deepening affection and respect.”
“Nothing stops us from having those things, Jane.” Hugh looked dreadful, stricken and broken, but she gave him credit for trying. “You know how fond I am of you.”
She bit back a whimper. “Fond” was a brutal punch to her solar plexus. “We can’t have those things if I love you, and you love someone else.”
His hands bunched at his sides. “You’re asking too much.”
“No, I’m not.” Her voice hardened. “My fault is that I didn’t ask for enough in the beginning.”
Anger darkened his features. “Are you saying I cheated you?”
He had. He still did. But she saw he’d never understand. “I was wrong to believe that I could live without love.”
His face contorted. “Why?” he asked savagely. “If I can bear it, why can’t you?”
His bitterness made her want to sink into the floor. “Hugh…”
But what could she say? They were trapped in mutual misery, both stuck with inconvenient, immovable loves that would sour the rest of their days.
Breathing unsteadily, he swung away to flatten his hands on the desk. He hunched his shoulders and hung his ruffled dark head. It broke her heart to see him looking so defeated. Unthinking she stepped forward to offer comfort, but stopped before she touched him.
“Jane, I’m sorry this has happened.” His voice was so deep, it vibrated in her bones.
“So am I.” She wished to heaven she could change. There was no point wishing Hugh would. This fraught interview demonstrated that he was as bewitched as ever.
A weighty silence crashed down. Eventually he raised his head and turned to face her. “We must go on.”
She shook her head. After seeing Fenella, she’d reached some painful decisions. Confessing her feelings to Hugh was only the beginning, and she suspected far from the hardest part. “I can’t live like this.”
He jerked back as if she’d hit him, and she saw him finally turn his mind to what these weeks had been like for her. “I’m sorry.”