“That makes no sense. You can’t deny that we are extremely attracted to each other.”
“Maybe not. But I don’t feel like I can commit to that sort of relationship with you. Things are complicated enough. A marriage in a strictly legal sense I can handle. But I’ve only known you for twenty-four hours and I can’t even begin to consider a sexual relationship with you. And you’re a very attractive man. I’m sure there will always be lots of women who want to …”
“If you’re concerned about my fidelity, don’t be. I was married for seven years and never once did I look at another woman. It was not a hardship for me.”
Maybe not, but Maximo had been in love with his wife. They weren’t in love. Not that she cared. But if she were to sleep with him, she would need to know that he was being faithful to her. And that was just one more reason not to cross that line with him. Even imagining a hypothetical situation where they were intimately involved made her care about who he slept with. It made her feel things like jealousy and insecurity, and other emotions she had no business feeling. If she actually made love with him it would no doubt be multiplied by a hundred, and that was just one of the many things she was trying to avoid.
“I’m not concerned about that. But if we were sleeping together then yes, I would want you to be faithful. You would want the same from me. Emotions would become involved.”
“Not for me,” he said starkly. She knew he spoke the truth. But he probably had lots of sexual experience. Divorcing love from sex was probably second nature to him. For her … she knew instinctively that sex could have a seriously devastating emotional effect on her. She just wouldn’t be able to open herself up like that to someone without becoming involved. It was one of the reasons she’d avoided it for the past twenty-eight years.
The last thing she needed was for him to become a necessity to her, and she knew that if she let herself she could easily melt into Maximo, let his strength hold her up when things were hard. She could grow to depend on him, and she’d spent far too long learning to be independent, to be in control, to take that chance.
“Maybe not. But this is what I want.”
“And you wouldn’t mind if I were having sex with other women?” he asked, his words obviously chosen to elicit a response from her. One they most certainly got, but she wasn’t going to let him know that.
“I wouldn’t care either way. If we aren’t sleeping together then there isn’t a relationship to be faithful to.”
“You may feel differently once we speak our vows.”
“I can’t imagine that I will. What we have in common is the desire to do what’s right for our child. Nothing more. We didn’t even conceive in the way most couples do.”
“But we very easily could have.”
It wasn’t true—she knew it wasn’t—and yet it was far too easy to visualize the image, a picture of her meeting Maximo in a bar, a restaurant, on the street. Of them talking, smiling, laughing. Having dinner together. Going home together. Making love.
No. It was easy for him to assume that might have happened, because he figured her for a normal woman who dated, had casual relationships, had sex. She didn’t do any of those things. And she had never felt lacking in any way because of it. Until now. Now she felt at a disadvantage. How was she supposed to deal with a man like Maximo? A sophisticated, experienced man who probably knew a lot more about women and sex than the average male. And she knew far less about men and sex than the average female.
“Those are my terms, Max,” she said softly. “I can’t marry you if you won’t agree to them.”
“Then I agree to them. I don’t want a martyr in my bed. I’ve never had to coerce a woman into sex in my life and I don’t intend to start doing so with my own wife.”
It was the absolute truth. He wasn’t about to blackmail or beg to get a woman to have sex with him, not even one he desired as much as he did Alison. He hadn’t even begged Selena when she’d moved out of their room. No was no, even from his wife.
He was surprised that Alison was denying them both what they so obviously wanted, but not even a sexless marriage was new to him. He’d been there. He imagined it had been Selena’s way of punishing him for not giving her a baby, although the issue had been with her body and not his. It hadn’t mattered to him. He had never once seen her as less of a woman. But she had been so frustrated with their timed lovemaking that never, ever produced the result she wanted, that she hadn’t even allowed him to touch her in the last six months of their marriage. The last six months of her life.
He knew why Selena had denied him, and he wasn’t sure he hadn’t deserved it. But he didn’t know what Alison’s game was. She was twenty-eight, a career woman, not sheltered or shy in any way. And she was very clearly heterosexual and very clearly attracted to him. So it didn’t make any sense for her to turn down a physical relationship with him. Especially since she obviously wanted him. Women might be able to fake orgasms, but her response to his kiss was very real. There was no way she could have engineered her body’s response to him, and no reason for her to do so.
But if she needed to put up a pretense of morality by insisting she couldn’t sleep with a man she didn’t know, she was welcome to do it. Although he doubted that she would hold on to that stance. The attraction between them was far too strong for that. It was certainly beyond anything he’d ever known in his experience.
She licked her lips and his body ached with the need to taste her sweet mouth again, to move his tongue over hers. He was instantly hard, his body raging with his need.
If she felt half of what he did, and based on that explosive kiss they’d shared in the corridor he was certain that she did, her play at resistance wasn’t going to last for very long. It simply wasn’t possible.
“Are you feeling up to dining with my parents?”
She sucked that sweet lower lip into her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. When she released it there were little dents left by her teeth, and he wanted to soothe them with his thumb, his tongue.
“I don’t suppose it’s acceptable to cancel dinner with the king and queen. What would Miss Manners say?”
His lips twitched and she felt an odd sense of gratification over having amused him. “If you’re not feeling well we will cancel.”
Selena would have canceled. His wife had frequently felt under the weather. She had been very delicate, emotionally and physically, and he had looked on it as his duty to protect her, shield her. It would be his duty to do the same for Alison. She was under his protection now. And he wouldn’t fail her.
The look of steely determination that lit Alison’s copper gaze surprised him. “I’ll be fine. I’ve been going to work, cooking my own meals, functioning just fine without being coddled. I’m more than able to meet with your parents.”
A brief spark of vulnerability shadowed her eyes. “What are they going to think about all of this?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know that the nature of our relationship is any of their business.”
“You mean you don’t want them to know how the baby was conceived.”
“They didn’t know about Selena’s fertility problems.”
“I see.” She looked at him, her expression searching. “And you don’t want them to know.”
“It was important to her that no one knew about her infertility. I have honored that.” She had seen it as a failure, one she couldn’t face sharing with the public, or his parents.
“Then I don’t think it’s important for them to know how we conceived the baby.” Alison didn’t really relish having to keep up any kind of facade, but neither did she want to be a part of damaging his late-wife’s memory.
It