Her eyes seemed to soften.
Standing, he tugged her up and into his embrace, her slender body a perfect fit against his larger frame. “I’ll get my stuff delivered from the hotel this afternoon.” He hated the damn place because it wasn’t home, would never be home. “We’ll be all right.” He’d ensure it. No matter what, he wasn’t going to lose her.
She was his everything.
Vicki let Caleb hold her and knew she was making a terrible mistake. But God, she’d missed being in her husband’s arms. For two months she’d missed him every single day. Each time he’d invited her to lunch, each time he’d dropped by for coffee, she’d known she should back away but instead had always agreed. Now that dangerous pattern threatened to continue. “You don’t need to be at home to share this with me.”
He loosened his hold enough that she could look up into those hazel eyes, shades lighter than his dark brown hair. “Hell yes, I do. You want to raise our kid like you were raised? Barely knowing his—or her—father?”
She sucked in a breath. “You know exactly where to aim, don’t you?” If there was one thing she didn’t want, it was for their child to grow up feeling unloved by either parent.
Letting her go, he put his hands on his hips under his suit jacket. “I’m not going to sugarcoat the truth—if you insist on this separation, it’s going to lead to divorce and eventually to a child shuttled from home to home.”
“You think it’s better for our baby to grow up in the middle of a battlefield?” She would not bring an innocent soul into the wreckage that was their marriage right now.
“Of course not.” His voice rose. “But, Vicki, you can’t have it both ways. Either you let me in and we start working on things, or you accept the alternative.”
“This is moving too fast—I need time.”
“You’ve had two months.” His jaw was set. “More than enough time.”
It was nowhere near enough, she thought. They’d seen each other several times a week during the separation but had yet to talk, really talk. “Caleb, look at it from my point of view. I just found out I’m pregnant. Having you back on top of that is going to be too much to cope with.”
“And the longer you keep me away, the less time we’ll have to fix things before the baby arrives,” he responded. “I’m not backing down on this, so you might as well say yes.”
If she hadn’t already made her decision before walking into this firm that he’d built with sheer determination, his statement might have rubbed her raw. But though so much of him was a mystery to her, this she’d predicted. From the second she’d discovered her pregnancy—though she’d had every intention of trying to convince him otherwise—she’d known that Caleb would refuse to keep his distance.
With that in mind, she’d thought long and hard about the conditions under which she’d allow him to move back into the house. “All right.” Even as she said those words, she was regretting them—give Caleb an inch and he’d take a mile. But this was no longer just about the two of them.
“That’s the right decision, honey,” he said. “You’ll see. We’ll be okay.”
Frowning at his tone, she started to point out that things were going to be a little different this time around. “Look, you can move in, but—”
“Sh.” He smiled and put his hand on her abdomen, startling her with the gesture. It made her pregnancy feel real in a way that even the doctor’s announcement hadn’t. “Don’t want the kid to hear us arguing, do you?”
Her stomach twisted. Already, it was starting—she spoke and he didn’t listen. “Caleb, I want to tell you—”
“Later.” He raised his hand to push her hair off her face. “We have all the time in the world.”
All his things were in the guest bedroom.
“What the hell is this?” Caleb turned to find his wife standing in the bedroom doorway, arms folded and eyes narrowed. No trace remained of the woman who’d let him hold her only a few hours ago.
Straightening her spine, she met his challenge head-on. “This is you not listening—you steamrolling over my objections to your moving back in just as you steamroll over everything.” There was steel in that soft voice he was used to hearing murmur in agreement.
“Later, you said. Well, this is ‘later.’ You can stay in the house but don’t expect to move back into my life like nothing ever happened. As far as I’m concerned, we’re still separated.”
He froze, shock acting like a narcotic in his blood. In the five years they’d been married, Vicki had never spoken to him like that. “Sweetheart—”
“No. No, Caleb. I’m not letting you push me into something I’m not ready for.”
“This isn’t giving us a chance,” he argued. “We can hardly work on our problems if I’m banished to this room with you holding the threat of divorce over my head.” Throwing his suit jacket on the bed, he began to tear off his tie, his eyes on Vicki.
“Neither is your way.” Her cheeks flushed with temper. “You want everything to go back to what it was—as if you haven’t been living in a hotel for the past two months…I was miserable in our marriage. Is that the wife you want back?”
Her words hurt. “You never said anything and then one day, you tell me you want a divorce. How the hell was I supposed to know you weren’t happy? I’m not a mind reader.” Giving up on the blasted tie, he shoved a hand through his hair.
Vicki clenched her fists, creamy skin taut over delicate bones. “No,” she said. “You’re not. But you wouldn’t have to be if you occasionally took the time to listen to me instead of insisting on your way or no way.”
Caleb was getting good and mad. “You never wanted to make any decisions so I made them.” Since the day he’d married her, he’d done his best to take care of her, protect her, and this was his thanks?
“Did you ever stop to think I might want more from life than to call you lord and master? People grow and change, Caleb. Didn’t you ever consider that I might have?”
Her sharp question brought his growing temper to a screeching halt, because the truth was, in his mind Vicki had remained the poised but still young bride of nineteen he’d carried into his home five years ago. Given the gap in their ages and life experiences, his taking charge of their marriage had been inevitable.
That wasn’t to say she’d been lacking her own strengths. In fact, she’d been unnaturally mature for her age, completely willing and able to take over her role as the wife of an ambitious young litigator determined to become better than the best.
He wouldn’t have been drawn to her if he hadn’t glimpsed the resilient will behind her shy smiles. But while he’d already walked a hard road by the age of twenty-nine, she’d been untested by the world, cocooned in an environment where everyone behaved according to accepted rules. Used to making decisions, it hadn’t occurred to him to act any other way with his wife.
For the first time in a long while, he looked at her without being blinded by memories of the girl she’d been. She was still slender, still beautiful in that graceful way with her blue eyes and that silky hair he loved to have brush over his skin. But her eyes no longer said what they had in the past.
When they’d wed, she’d looked to him for everything. Now…now there was distance in those blue depths, a world of secrets he was shut out of. To his shock, he found he had no idea who she was behind her elegant shell.
“No, I guess I didn’t.” He’d built his life around his self-confidence, trusting his instincts when there’d been nothing and no one else to trust. To admit he’d been wrong about something