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“But don’t blame me for everything,” he continued. They’d both been in that broken marriage and if they were going to survive the rebuilding, they had to be honest. “You know what I’m like. If you’d said something, I would have tried to fix it. I don’t like to see you hurting.”
Which was why he’d never berated her for the one thing she couldn’t give him—her passion, her desire. That absence in their marriage had stung like hell, and still did, but he was incapable of harming her, even to assuage his own pain. From the moment he’d met her, all he’d wanted to do was make her happy…make her smile.
Shoulders taut beneath the white linen of her simple shift dress, she shook her head. “That’s the point, Caleb. I don’t want you to fix things for me. I need…”
“What, Vicki? Tell me what you need.” It was something he’d never asked. The realization stunned him, made him question exactly how good a job he’d done of loving her.
Even in bed, he’d taken the lead, confident in his ability to ensure her physical pleasure though he couldn’t make her want him with the fury that he wanted her. But what if she’d needed something else, something he hadn’t known how to give? What if that was the reason she’d never responded to him with the intensity he needed from her?
Her whole face softened. “I just need you to see and love me, not the idea of the perfect wife you have in your head, or the woman Grandmother tried to mold me into. Just me. Just Victoria.”
It felt as if she’d struck him. “I never tried to change you.”
“No, Caleb. You never even saw me at all.” And that had hurt more than anything. Because no matter what she said and did, she loved Caleb Callaghan with every breath in her body. Loved his laugh, his intelligence, his stubbornness and even his temper.
But it wasn’t enough. Love like that could slowly destroy a person from the inside out if it wasn’t returned. And despite what Caleb believed, she knew it wasn’t. To her husband she was as fragile as an exotic bloom, someone who always had to be protected, even if that meant she had to be shielded from the full power of his own feelings.
Like now. His fists were clenched, his jaw taut but he kept himself under control. “If I didn’t see you, then who the hell did I spend five years with? A ghost?”
The sarcastic comment fell too close to the mark. “Maybe you did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
How did she tell him something she’d barely started to understand herself? “Who was I in that marriage, Caleb?”
“My wife.” His hazel eyes were clouded with a kind of pain she’d never before seen. “Wasn’t that enough?”
“Caleb Callaghan’s wife,” she said, swallowing the knot of emotion in her throat. “But was I really even that?”
He scowled. “What kind of question is that? Of course you were my wife. You still are. And if you’d get over this separate-bedrooms crap, we could start working on making things right.”
If I’m your wife, she wanted to scream, then why did you do that with Miranda? But that wasn’t something she was strong enough to face yet—four months of distance from the event hadn’t even formed a scab on the wound. “This is not crap, Caleb. This is real, so start paying attention—for once in your life, pay attention to your marriage!”
Swiveling on her heel, she walked out of the room. From behind her came the harsh sounds of Caleb swearing and throwing something at the wall, but he didn’t follow her. Relieved, she entered her own room, knowing she was close to an emotional meltdown. It was one thing to coach herself on how to handle Caleb when it was only hypothetical, and quite another to be faced with the full force of his personality.
She’d spent her marriage unable to say what needed to be said because she’d been too weak to stand up to the force of nature that was Caleb Callaghan. Having him home scared her—what if she crumpled again, losing everything she’d gained in the months they’d been apart, months in which she’d made herself take a critical look at her life?
What she’d seen hadn’t been pretty. But at least she was facing her mistakes now, facing the mess of their marriage. Getting Caleb to do the same would be a major battle, but she’d made a beginning two months ago when she’d gambled everything on a throw of the dice and asked him for a divorce.
It had been a move born of desperation and staked on Caleb’s stubborn refusal to admit defeat in any arena. She’d wanted to shake him out of his complacency, to make him see that the life they’d been living wasn’t a life at all, merely an existence. Despite her hurt over what he’d done with Miranda during that business trip to Wellington, she hadn’t wanted to give up on the dream that had first brought them together.
But not even for that dream had she been willing to continue hiding behind the perfect facade of their fractured marriage. So she’d thrown the dice. And waited for Caleb to pick them up.
He hadn’t let her down. Though he’d moved out, he’d made sure he had contact with her almost every day. Now, the unexpected gift of their baby had given them more time, time enough for Caleb to get to know her, to begin to understand the woman she’d always been beneath the brittle shell of breeding and culture.
After he understood who she was, he’d have to decide whether or not he wanted to remain married to her, whether or not he wanted to fight to fix a marriage she wasn’t sure could be fixed. Vicki had no intention of ever again donning the mask of a fashion-conscious socialite wife. The question was, what if that was exactly the kind of woman Caleb wanted?
A woman who’d go her own way and not demand anything from him but money and a place in society; a woman who’d turn the other cheek when infidelity raised its ugly head; a woman who’d never dream of destroying her upper-class lifestyle by divorcing her husband because he didn’t love her.
Two
Caleb was in a foul mood. He’d fully expected to spend the night with his wife, but instead had tossed and turned in the guest bedroom while Vicki lay feet away. By the time the shrill ring of the alarm woke him, all of his nerves had been rubbed raw.
He didn’t understand why Vicki was doing this to them—she’d never acted so unreasonably before. How could she expect them to pretend to be separated when they were both living in the same house and she was about to have his baby, for God’s sake? As far as he was concerned, separate beds were not part of the marriage deal. And he’d missed her, damn it. Hadn’t she missed him even a bit?
After a quick shower, he pulled on his suit jacket and walked into the kitchen, expecting a cold welcome from the woman he’d spent the night dreaming about. Vicki stood at the counter pouring coffee into his cup. His mood elevated. “I half expected you to tell me to fend for myself.” That was what she’d done in the last weeks before their separation.
She rolled her eyes. “If I didn’t feed you, you’d live on takeout.”
He slid onto a stool on the other side of the counter, luxuriating in the feel of being home again. In spite of the hours he’d worked as a rising young lawyer, he’d restored this villa with his own hands. It had been his escape from the combative world in which he spent much of his life.
When he’d married Vicki, the villa had only been partially restored and he’d expected her to balk at the work remaining, but she’d lit up at the prospect. She’d done a lot of the finishing work herself—he’d often come home to a wife with paint-stained skin and scraped knuckles.
Almost a year later, they’d had a bright, airy home stamped with their personalities. Some of the happiest days of their marriage had been spent covered in paint and sawdust, with only each other’s voices for company.
“Do vending-machine snacks count as proper food?” he asked, trying to tease his way back into their normal routine. The separation had been hell—he had no intention of returning to that empty existence, no matter what he had to do to convince Vicki.
She gave him an arch look and broke a couple of eggs into a bowl. “I hope you’re joking.”
Caleb knew how to cook. Forced by circumstance, he’d learned to do so as a young child, feeding both himself and his younger sister when his parents became too caught up in themselves. But from the first day of their marriage, Vicki had taken over the kitchen and he’d let her. It had always been one of his secret pleasures that his wife cared enough about him to ensure he ate properly. No one else had ever bothered.
Which was why it had hurt so much when she’d stopped.
Taking the coffee, along with the plate of scrambled eggs and bacon she passed over, he tried out a smile. “Aren’t you joining me?” Breakfast was one of the few meals they’d managed to share regularly. He wondered what she’d do if she knew that he’d skipped breakfast while living at the hotel, unable to bear her absence. Not that he had any intention of telling her.
She made a face. “I think I’ll wait an hour or so.”
“You okay, sweetheart?”
Her lips curved into a smile that sucker punched him with its beauty. “Just a tiny bit of morning sickness that’s actually hitting in the morning, for once.”
“Doesn’t it always?” He was fascinated by the life growing inside of her, hoped she wouldn’t shut him out of the experience the way she’d shut him out of her bed.
She shook her head. “No. It comes and goes on its own schedule. But I’m lucky—I haven’t really had it bad at all. Eat or you’ll be late.”
Obeying, he watched her move around the kitchen dressed in jeans and a sea-green cardigan that looked so touchable, he wondered if she’d worn it to torment him. His hands itched to mold themselves over her slender frame. Her three-month-old pregnancy wasn’t yet visible and she looked much as she’d done when they’d married, but as he’d learned last night, things had changed.
“Toast.” She plucked two pieces out of the toaster, buttered them and handed them over.
As he took them, his gaze fell on a pale pink envelope sitting on the far end of the counter next to the fruit bowl. “What’s that?”
“A card from Mother.”
He eyed her carefully. “What does it say?”
“Only that she might be visiting Auckland in a week or two to catch up with me. Eat.” She waved a hand at him and walked over to put the envelope in the back pocket of her jeans.
Caleb wondered if she really felt as carefree as she was making out. Danica Wentworth’s infrequent interruptions of Vicki’s life tended to leave his wife distraught. He’d tried to broach the subject with her more than once, but she’d backed away with alacrity that spoke of such deep pain, he’d never pursued it. In truth, part of him worried that if he pushed her on this point, she might push back, and there were things about his childhood he wanted no one to know.
But that same childhood had also given him the tools to understand her wariness. What child would want to remember the woman who’d abandoned her to pursue a lover? Though that man had gone on to marry another, Danica remained in a relationship with him to this day—she’d never left him like she’d left her four-year-old daughter. Worse, she had entrusted Vicki to her ex-husband’s mother, Ada, a woman about as maternal as a gutter snake.
Vicki shot him a curious look when he continued to stare at her. “What?”
“Nothing.” Nothing that he could put into words.
He ached to walk over and wrap her in his arms, to show her what he felt. It seemed as though he’d spent eternity aching to hold his wife. But always he stopped, knowing that she wouldn’t welcome such advances. That moment in his office yesterday had been an aberration. She’d been upset and vulnerable and he’d acted on instinct.
“Are you going to court today?” She eyed his black suit and to his surprise, came over to fix the collar of his shirt. The woman-scent of her went straight to his heart.
He nodded, trying not to look as stunned as he felt. Vicki never touched him unless he initiated contact. “The Dixon-McDonald case.”
Her eyes met his and she dropped her hands, as if startled by her own actions. “Two companies fighting it out over a patent, right?” A soft blush shading her cheeks, she walked around the counter and picked up the carafe to refill his coffee. “Think you guys will win?”
He was further surprised by her knowledge of the case. “Callaghan & Associates always win.” He grinned despite feeling strangely off balance. Vicki was…different.
Though she refused to meet his gaze, she laughed. “What’s the firm doing involved in a patent case? I thought that was pretty specialized.”
God, he’d missed her laugh. It made him realize how long it had been since he’d heard it—months before his move to the hotel. “When did you start keeping track of my files?” His tone was conversational but in his gut, guilt churned. Why hadn’t he noticed the extent of her unhappiness before now? Even when she’d rocked their world by asking him for a divorce, he hadn’t woken up to that fact. Why the hell not? Had he been so wrapped up in work he’d forgotten the woman he’d promised to love, honor and cherish?
Finally, she raised her head. “Since always.”
“But you’ve never talked to me about any of them before.” Never talked about the firm he’d built with blood, sweat and tears, though it had been an integral part of their life. “Even when you held dinner parties for my clients, you asked barely enough to ensure things ran smoothly.”
“I…” She paused and then took a deep breath. “I guess I didn’t want to sound stupid. It’s not like I have legal or corporate training. And you never seemed to want to discuss your work when you came home. I thought maybe it had something to do with confidentiality.”
His head spun at the uncertainty in her tone. “You couldn’t sound stupid if you tried. Attorney-client privilege doesn’t stop us discussing things in general terms like we just did. I never talked about work because I thought you weren’t interested.” And why exactly had he thought that?
The answer remained frustratingly out of reach, but he understood enough to fix this mistake. “The reason we got involved is that the client followed Marsha Henrikkson—” he named one of his newer associates “—when she switched to our firm. She’s a qualified patent attorney.”
Vicki beamed at him.
“What?” he asked, rocked by his own pleasure at having made his wife smile. Sunlight shimmered off the wooden counter and suddenly, bittersweet shards of memory cut into him. He remembered sanding this counter and looking up to find Vicki smiling at him from the other side. Back then he’d been full of hope for their future, still cocky enough to laughingly grab his wife and tumble her to the floor.
“Nothing.” Continuing to smile, she asked, “Do you want more toast?”
Memory and reality converged in her happiness. “No, this will hold me.” He took a last sip of coffee and stood, wishing he didn’t have an early appointment. The two of them hadn’t been this easy with each other for far too long. “I’ll call if I’m going to be late.”
“Fine.”
He caught the edge in her tone. “What does that mean?” If blunt questions were what it would take for him to get to know this intriguing woman who’d shown him more fire and passion in one day than she had during the rest of their marriage, he’d ask a thousand of them.
Her jaw firmed. “You’re always late, Caleb. I can’t remember the last time we had dinner together when it wasn’t a work function.”
He’d never thought she cared one way or the other if he was around. After all, she could hardly bear it when he reached for her and if he was with her, he wanted to touch her. Her dislike of intimacy with him had half destroyed him, but she was still the only woman he wanted as his wife. “You want me home for dinner?”
“Of course I want you home for dinner!” Frown lines marred her forehead. “You’re my husband.”
The decision was easy. “I’ll be home.”
Another unexpected smile lit up her features, erasing the frown. “Really?”
“Promise.” He wanted nothing more than to kiss her and taste the sunshine sparkling on her lips.
She stepped closer. “I’ll wait for you.”
He wished she’d touch him, hug him, anything. But Vicki had never taken that sort of action and eventually, he’d learned to withhold his own inherently physical nature, learned not to ask for things she could never give him.
Even if it shredded his soul.
Vicki watched Caleb get into his dark sedan and drive away. No matter how well she thought she knew him, he could always surprise her. The way he’d agreed to come home early without any hesitation had been a shock, given his dedication to his work.
She hated coming second to the law firm that was his life, hated it with a vengeance that could have turned her bitter if she hadn’t decided to do something about it. Caleb’s easy acquiescence to her request gave her hope that the battle might not be as impossible as it had always seemed. Maybe he was listening to her at long last.
But, she thought suddenly, was she listening to him? There had been something in his eyes as he’d looked at her in the kitchen—as if he’d wanted to say something, do something, but was restraining himself. She got that impression a lot around Caleb. Restraint. Emotions held captive.
He hadn’t started out that way. In the beginning, she’d almost drowned in the power of Caleb, a little frightened at the strength of his focus on her but delighting in it all the same. Then something had changed between them…been damaged.
If she’d walked over to fix his collar when they’d first married, no matter how angry they were with each other, he would have pulled her into his lap and kissed her until she begged for mercy. She’d touched him deliberately this morning as a test to see how much remained of that early passion. The answer had devastated her.
What had happened to the fire that had once raged between them? Had she destroyed it? She didn’t know what to think, experience warring with childhood lessons about acceptable behavior and the need to control her emotions. All she knew was that she’d die if she was never again as important to Caleb as she’d been at the start.
But why then did she get the impression that Caleb was constantly fighting to rein in his nature? Why could she almost feel the dark intensity of the emotions he kept locked up? And why could she never ask him what it was that he wanted to say but didn’t?
He was right. He hadn’t been the only one who’d made mistakes in their marriage.
Three
Caleb arrived home that evening to find Vicki in the living room staring at the phone. Dressed in a sleeveless black dress that faithfully hugged every curve, she looked tempting enough to eat. His gut clenched at the thought that she’d donned a sexy dress for dinner. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“Anything the matter?” Dropping his briefcase on the couch, he stripped off his overcoat and suit jacket. Autumn was turning into winter and the breeze coming off the bay was increasingly crisp. But it was warm inside the house, the sunlight trapped by both the windows and the skylights.
“Your secretary just called from her apartment. She said she forgot to tell you she’d managed to reschedule with Mr. Johnson. The meeting is now at eight tomorrow morning.”
That was the appointment Caleb had cancelled in order to be home for dinner. “Thanks for taking the message. My mobile’s dead—I forgot to charge it.” Tugging off his tie, he dropped it on the sofa before undoing the top two buttons of his shirt and walking over to join her. “Why the look?” The urge to run his hands over the delicate softness of her bare arms was a physical ache.
“It wasn’t Miranda,” she blurted out, troubled eyes looking to him for explanation.
If there was one thing he didn’t want to discuss, it was his former secretary. “No. She’s been gone awhile.” Giving in to temptation, he curved one hand over the creamy skin of her shoulder. She shivered but didn’t move away. Then again, she never did. At least not until the end.
Victoria wanted to ask why Miranda had left but the courage that had pushed her this far deserted her in the face of the sickening thought that bloomed in her mind without warning. What if Miranda was no longer Caleb’s secretary because she was something else? Such arrangements weren’t unheard of in the circles in which she’d grown up—her own mother was a perfect example. And Caleb had been living away from her for two months. Maybe he’d gotten tired of waiting.
“Vicki?”
The reply she wanted to make kept slipping out of the turmoil in her mind. She stared at the floor in a desperate attempt to find her sense of balance but suddenly her world was spinning. “I need to sit…” And then it was too much effort to speak.
She heard him swear. Before she could collapse, he scooped her up in those powerful arms and she felt herself being carried to the sofa. He sat down with her held close. “Vicki? Talk to me. Come on, sweetheart.”
She took several deep breaths, letting herself be comforted by the only man who’d ever given her this tenderness. “I’m okay. Just give me a moment.”
