‘Why?’ he stalled.
‘Yes, why?’ she insisted. ‘And please don’t say you’re in love with me, because we both know you’re not.’
Jason was tempted to lie. He knew he could be very convincing if he tried. He could say he’d hidden his feelings because Ivy had warned him off. He could say a whole load of conning garbage. But that was not what he wanted. If and when he married Emma, he wanted no lies. No pretence. From either of them.
‘No,’ Jason replied with a degree of regret in his voice. ‘No, I’m not in love with you, Emma. But believe me when I say I find you very pretty and very desirable. I have right from the first time I saw you.’
He took some comfort from the colour which zoomed into her cheeks. Had she been aware of his admiration all along? If she had, she’d never given him any indication, although, to be fair, she’d always been prepared to spend time with him after he’d visited her aunt, always offered him coffee and conversation.
‘A man like you could have any girl he wanted,’ she countered. ‘Ones far prettier and more desirable than me. There’s not a single girl in the district who wouldn’t throw herself at your feet, if you turned your eye her way.’
But not you, it seems, Jason thought. Damn, but this was not going to be one of his greatest moments. Failure was always a bitter taste in his mouth. In the past, there hadn’t been a girl he’d fancied whom he hadn’t been successful with.
Keeping his voice steady and calm, and his eyes firmly on hers, he went on. ‘I don’t want any other girl in the district, Emma. I want you.’
Now she flushed fiercely, and his confidence began to return.
‘As I’ve already said, Emma, I think you’d make a wonderful wife. And a wonderful mother. I watched you with your aunt. You’re so kind and caring. So patient and gentle. In the weeks I’ve known you, I’ve come to like you very very much. I thought you liked me in return. Was I mistaken?’
‘No,’ she returned, although warily. ‘I do like you. But just liking someone is not enough for marriage. Neither is finding them attractive.’
So she found him attractive, did she? That was good. That was very good.
‘You think you have to be in love?’ he probed softly.
‘Well, yes, I do.’
‘Six months ago I might have agreed with you,’ he said ruefully, and her eyes narrowed on him.
‘What do you mean? What happened six months ago?’
Jason hesitated, then gambled on telling her the complete truth. There was a bond in revealing one’s soul to another. And one’s secrets. He wanted no secrets between them, not if they were to be man and wife. And, by God, they would be, if he had anything to do about it.
‘Six months ago I was working with and living with a woman in Sydney. A doctor. I was madly in love with her and we were planning to be married this year. One day, one of her patients died. A little boy. Of bacterial meningitis.’
‘Oh, how sad! She must have been very upset.’
‘One might reasonably have thought so,’ he said bitterly. ‘I have no doubt you would have been devastated in her position. But not Adele. Oh, no. The child’s death meant nothing to her, other than a slight blow to her ego. She was briefly annoyed she hadn’t matched the child’s symptoms with the cause, but then how could she, in a mere five minutes’ consultation?’
‘Five minutes?’ She was shocked, he could see.
‘That was the average length of a consultation in our surgery. Get ’em in and get ’em out as quickly as possible. Turn-over meant money, you see, and money was the name of the game. Not people. Or lives. Just money.’
She was staring at him, perhaps seeing the truth behind that vitriol, that it wasn’t just Adele who’d been greedy and heartless in those days. He’d been just as bad.
He sighed. ‘Yes, it’s true. There, but for the grace of God, go I.’
‘Oh, no, Jason,’ she said softly. ‘Not you. You’re not like that at all. I watched you with Aunt Ivy. You’re a very caring man, and a very good doctor.’
His heart squeezed tight. ‘You flatter me, Emma. But I would like to think I finally saw the error of my ways and made changes for the better. That’s why I left the city and came here, to find my self-respect again, and to find a better way of life.’
‘What about your relationship with this Adele?’ she asked, her expression thoughtful.
‘I could hardly continue to love a woman I despised,’ he said.
Her laugh startled him. ‘Do you think love is finished as easily as that? Do you think finding out something unpleasant—or even wicked—about the person you love, smashes that love to smithereens? Believe me, Jason, it doesn’t.’
Her words were like a kick to his stomach. She still loved Dean Ratchitt, regardless of his faithless character. And she believed he still loved Adele.
Jason tried to give that concept some honest thought. Perhaps he did still love her. He certainly thought about her a lot. And he missed her, especially in bed.
But neither of these factors would deter his resolve for a future between himself and Emma. Nor would he let her think he wasn’t aware of her unrequited passion for another man.
‘I’ve heard all about Dean Ratchitt,’ he said abruptly, and her green eyes flared wide with shock.
‘Who from? Aunt Ivy?’
‘Amongst others.’
‘And what…what did they say?’
‘The truth. That you were engaged to be married and he betrayed you with another girl. That you argued and told him you would marry the next man who asked you.’ He set steady eyes upon her own stunned gaze. ‘So I’m the next man, Emma, and I’m asking you. Marry me.’
Jason was taken aback when her shock swiftly became anger. ‘They had no right to tell you that,’ she shot back at him. ‘I didn’t mean it. I never meant it. I can’t marry you, Jason. I’m sorry.’ And she tore her eyes away from his to smoulder down into her coffee.
Her passionate outburst stripped away the cool, calm façade Jason had been hiding behind. He was never at his best when his will was thwarted, especially when he believed what he wanted was for the best for everyone all round.
‘Why not?’ he demanded to know. ‘Because you’re waiting for Ratchitt to return?’
‘Dean,’ she snapped, glittering green eyes flying back to his. ‘His name is Dean.’
‘Ratchitt matches his character better.’
Her gaze grew distressed and dropped back down. ‘He…he might come back,’ she mumbled. ‘Now that I’m alone, and…and…’
‘An heiress?’ he supplied for her cuttingly. ‘I don’t think this place will bring him running, Emma.’ And he waved around the ancient and shabbily furnished room. ‘Men like Ratchitt want more out of life than some old house in a country backwater, even if the front rooms have been turned into a sweet shop.’
She was shaking her head at him. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘I think I understand the situation very well. He stole your heart, then broke it, without a second thought. I’ve met men like him before. They can’t keep their pants zipped for more than a day, and they love no one but themselves. He’s not worth loving, any more than Adele was. I’ve consigned her to my past. The best thing you can do is consign Ratchitt to your past, and go forward.
‘Marry me, Emma,’ he urged,