Nora Roberts - Dance Upon the Air

"No, I couldn't. I-"

"And you let me touch you, you slept with me, let me fall in love with you, knowing you weren't free."

"Yes." It was so cold, suddenly so cold in the little kitchen that it penetrated her bones. "I don't have any excuses for it."

"I won't ask when you were planning to tell me. Obviously you weren't." He closed the box with a snap, jammed it back in his pocket. "I don't sleep with other men's wives, Nell. A word from you, one goddamn word from you, and we wouldn't have gotten to this point."

"I know. It's my fault." As his anger grew, hardened his face, she felt the strength she'd rebuilt draining away like the color in her cheeks.

"You think that makes up for it?" he shot back, as temper and misery careened inside him. "You think taking the blame for it cleans the fucking slate on this?"

"No."

"Goddamn it." He spun away from her and caught the way she flinched at the move. "I'll yell when I need to yell. You're only making me madder standing there like you're waiting for a punch. I'm not going to hit you. Not now, not ever. And it's insulting for you to stand there wondering if I will."

"You don't know what it's like."

"No, I don't, because you won't tell me." He reined himself in as much as he could, though temper was still sparking. "Or you tell me just enough to keep things running smooth until the next time."

"Maybe that's true. But I told you I couldn't tell you everything. That I wasn't going to go into the details."

"This isn't a damn detail. You're still married to the man who did this to you."

"Yes."

"Are you planning on ending the marriage?"

"No."

"Well, that's plain enough." He snatched up his boots, his jacket.

"I can't let him find out where I am. I can't let him find me."

He started to yank the door open, then stood there a moment, his hand on the knob. "Did you ever stop and think, just once did you ever stop and look at me and know I'd do whatever needed to be done for you? I'd have done it, Nell, for a stranger, because it's my job. How could you not know I'd do it for you?"

She did know, she thought as he walked away from her. It was only one of the things that frightened her. Unable to cry, she sat miserably in the house she had made safe, and empty.

I've lost him. I've ruined it." Nell sat in Mia's great, gorgeous cavern of a living room, in front of an ox-roasting fire sipping a cup of healing cinnamon tea. Isis stretched her lean, warm body over her lap like a cozy blanket.

None of it lifted her mood.

"Damaged it, perhaps. And nothing's lost that can be found again."

"I can't fix this, Mia. Everything he said to me is true. I didn't want to think about it, to see it, but it's true. I had no right to let things get as serious as they did."

"I don't happen to have a hair shirt handy, but I imagine we can make something up." At Nell's shocked stare, Mia lifted one shoulder elegantly. "It's not that I don't sympathize with both of you, because I do. But the fact is, Nell, you fell in love, both of you. And both of you dealt with it the way you needed to deal with it. You brought each other something that not everyone is given. That's nothing to regret."

"I don't regret loving him, or being loved by him. I regret a lot of things, but not that."

"All right, then. You need to take the next step."

"There is no next step. I can't marry Zack because I'm legally tied to someone else. And even if Evan decides to divorce me in absentia or whatever, I still couldn't marry Zack. My identification is false."

"Details."

"Not to him."

"Yes, you're right." She tapped her pretty fingernails on the side of her cup as she considered. "Some things Zack would see, because he's Zack, as black and white. I'm sorry I didn't think this far ahead and warn you of that. I know him," Mia continued as she rose to stretch. "I didn't anticipate that he'd move toward legal binding so quickly. I'm jaded when it comes to love."

She poured more tea, pondered while she roamed the room and sipped.

There were two sofas, both in deep hunter green, that begged for a body to sink down and sink in. They were scattered with jewel-toned pillows, all in soft fabrics. Texture was essential to luxury, and when at leisure, Mia insisted on luxury.

The room was populated with antiques, because she preferred the old to the new unless it was in business equipment. The rugs on the wide-planked chestnut floor were satisfactorily faded. There were flowers everywhere, in priceless crystal or in cheerful colored bottles of no special value.

Some of the candles she surrounded herself with in every room were lit. The white ones, for peace.

"You've hurt him, Nell, on two levels. One by not falling into his arms in utter delight when he proposed." She stopped, lifting one brow. "I told you I was jaded in this area, but nonetheless, when a man asks a woman to marry him, he's not going to be pleased when she says 'No, thank you.'"

"I'm not a complete idiot, Mia."

"No, darling. I'm sorry." Contrite, though secretly amused at the biting tone, Mia stopped behind the sofa and stroked Nell's hair. "Of course you're not. And I should have said three levels, the second being his sense of honor. He has just discovered himself poaching on what he would consider another man's territory."

"Oh, really. I'm not a damn rabbit."

"Zack would see himself breaking a code. The third level is that he would certainly have done so anyway, if he'd known. If you'd told him the circumstances. He could adjust his line there, because he loves you and wants you, and because he would be relieved that you'd escaped from a horrible situation. But the fact that you didn't tell him, that you let him go into this, let him fall in love with you blind, is going to be hard for him to swallow."

"Why can't he see that my marriage to Evan means nothing? I'm not Helen Remington anymore."

"Do you want comfort or truth?" Mia asked flatly.

"I can't have both. It may as well be truth."

"You lied to him, and by lying you put him in an untenable position. More, you told him you didn't intend to end the marriage."

"I can't-"

"Wait. You won't end it, and without an end there can't be a beginning. This is purely your choice, Nell, and no one can or should take it from you. But you've blocked Zack from being able to stand for you. To stand with you or, more to his liking, I imagine, to step in front of you and face your demon. Nell."

She sat again, taking Nell's hands. "Do you think he wears a badge for amusement, for the pathetic pay, for the power?"

"No. But he doesn't understand what Evan can do, what he's capable of. Mia, there's a madness inside him. A kind of cold, deliberate madness that I can't begin to explain."

"People tend to think the word 'evil' is overdramatic," Mia said, "when actually, it's extremely simple."

"Yes." A few knots untangled. She should have known by now that she didn't have to explain to Mia. "And he doesn't understand that I can't bear the idea of seeing Evan again, of hearing his voice. I think I'd break this time. I think it would shatter me."

"You're stronger than that."

Nell shook her head. "He… shrinks me. I don't know if you can understand what I mean."

"Yes, I do. Do you want a spell, a charm, to bolster yourself? To shield yourself from one man so you can have the other?" Mia reached over, stroked Isis along her sleek back. The cat raised her head, exchanged what seemed to be a telling look with her mistress, then curled up.

"There are things that can be done," Mia said, briskly now. "To protect, to center yourself, to enhance your own energies. But beneath it all, Nell, the power's inside you. For now…"