A Rose At Midnight. Sylvie Kurtz

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      “You’re offering marriage.” She twitched her finger off the table when she realized the knot on the pine board was shaped like a lopsided heart. “Does it include love?”

      “Love is a useless emotion.” He found a jar of instant coffee and banged it on the counter. He whisked a mug from a display shelf on the side of the sink window and set it beside the coffee jar with a thump. “We’re adults now, not children. We’re old enough to know that feelings have no place in this world.”

      “What’s the point of marriage, then?”

      “You said you wanted roots.”

      Her heart hitched inside her chest. He’d remembered that from their six-month courtship? Her gaze sought him and she willed him to turn around.

      He twisted the sink’s spigot too harshly and water splashed onto his white tuxedo shirt. Without acknowledging the wetness, he stuffed the kettle under the water’s stream and filled it. “I can protect you. I can give you security. I can give you the world.”

      “But not your love.” She no longer seemed to feel anything—not the room’s cold air, not the fire in her stomach, not the feelings that should be ripping through her like a tornado.

      “There are more solid things between a man and a woman than useless feelings.”

      “Like what?” Could he have forgotten the passion they’d once shared?

      He jammed the kettle onto a burner and wrenched the knob. The click-click-click of spark kindling gas sounded like cockroaches scurrying for cover. “Like the things you say you want, Christiane. Family, roots, security.”

      Her voice could not climb up her throat. A tiny sound echoed inside her like a wounded cry. She checked her cheeks with a quick flick of her hand to make sure no moisture stained them, betraying the ease with which he could tear open old wounds.

      “Trust me.” He said the words so softly, she had to strain to catch them. Their gazes met and held. His weighty sadness mixed with hers and wove a bond of regret for all that might have been, all that could never be.

      “The last time I trusted you,” she blurted out, “I ended up alone and pregnant.”

      She hadn’t meant to tell him. Not now. Not like this. As she waited for his reaction, no air could crawl through the constricted passages of her lungs. Her fingers dug into the soft flesh of her stomach, trying to stem the flickers of fire burning through her gut. Nothing moved across his face. No shadow, no emotion, no surprise. He was taking the news of his fatherhood as if she’d casually mentioned the weather—calmly, much too calmly. Could he really feel so little?

      “Then think of our child.” If he’d said anything else. If he hadn’t said the words so blankly. If he hadn’t looked at her with such remote coldness, she could have kept her cool. But his utter lack of emotion detonated a small explosion deep inside her, one that concentrated all he should have felt with all she couldn’t contain and spewed it out in a high, thin voice. “Our child? Our child!” She thumped her fist against her chest. “My child, Daniel. My daughter.”

      “Mine also. An obligation it’s past time I take on.”

      Anger snaked into rampant fear as his unspoken threat unleashed a forewarning so terrifying she was at a loss for words.

      “It’s my right to know my daughter.” He snagged a spoon from a jelly jar on the table, catching the lip of the glass.

      Her hands gnarled into fists. Her muscles shook with such intensity she had to clamp her arms at her sides to keep herself from leaping out of her chair. She barely registered when the spoon jar rattled against the table, when it toppled over, scattering spoons onto the tabletop, spilling them onto the floor, when the falling spoons clacked like skeleton teeth against the linoleum tiles. “You. Can’t. Have. Her.” She’s all I have.

      Carefully, he dropped a heaping spoonful of instant coffee into a mug and laid the spoon on the counter. Precisely, he screwed the plastic cap back onto the glass jar. Rigidly, he replaced the jar into the cupboard, giving a half twist so the red and gold label would face out like the rest of the bottles and jars on the shelf. “If you want to stay here, you’ll have to do it on my terms.”

      “You have no hold on me.” Barely aware she was moving, she rose. “I won’t let you play with me, hurt me again.” With slow, purposeful steps, she moved toward him. “I won’t let you use my daughter to control me.”

      He started forward with cool, measured strides, meeting her halfway. They stood facing each other squarely, a foot of space between them—two hungry dogs, one precious bone. “You’re not giving me any choice. I need—”

      “You need what, Daniel? Tell me.”

      He crowded in on her, invading her personal space with the intensity of his will, his heat, his body. She backed away reflexively. Playing with fire was dangerous. He followed, matching her step for step. She was going to get burned. He backed her against the solid surface of the refrigerator. And there was no way out.

      “There’s too much between us.” His voice, low and husky, rumbled through her. “Bonds. Obligations. History.” He planted the back of one hand next to her head on the refrigerator’s enamel and fanned the tips of his fingers through the ends of her hair. “By insisting on staying, you’re bringing the past into the present. You’re asking for loose ends to be tied.”

      Loose ends. The edge of madness dissipated. Loose ends. She hadn’t thought of it that way, but it was. Her history was a loose end. Daniel was a loose end. She herself was a loose end. And he was right. Loose ends needed trimming.

      He reached for her then, his free hand molding to the back of her neck, fingertips burrowing between strands of her hair to cradle the sensitive scalp beneath. She trembled at his touch, felt the echo of it shimmer through him. He pressed his lips against hers, savoring, caressing, demanding a response. He tasted hot and exciting, and she couldn’t help the throaty sound of desire as she opened up to him. His hand skimmed her shoulder, followed the curve of her back to her waist and pressed her closer to him, letting her feel him come alive against her. Her skin warmed. Her blood heated. Her pulse flared. Against her will, she softened against him, melting with a sigh into his embrace, responding to his unexpected male hunger with a feminine fierceness that surprised her.

      He knew her. Knew how to play her with even more ease than his keyboard. Knew she could not resist him anymore than she could resist his music. And he would take away the only point of stability in her life. All to get what he wanted.

      “Please…stop.” Struggling, she pushed away from the blaze of his kiss with a trembling hand.

      He allowed her a small retreat, but held her hips prisoner in his palms. “You wanted me then. You want me still. It’s a solid enough base for a marriage.”

      “I let you into my bed because I loved you, not to satisfy hormones. Sex isn’t solid. It’s a moment.”

      “A moment you’ve lived with for nine years.” His thumb glided gently over her still-moist bottom lip. Her skin pulsated in the trail of his touch. The shadow of memories played on his face, softening the harsh lines around his mouth, deepening the amber of his eyes to that mellow brandy that made her forget logic. “Can you honestly say that you don’t want me?”

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