“I haven’t seen the family thing work out so well. It might be for some people, but not for me.”
“So, not just kids, you’re tossing the whole marriage thing into the trash along with that?”
“I wouldn’t say trash. I chose not to.”
That sounded rather harsh. Cut-and-dried. He’d live alone his entire life? What would make anyone come to such a drastic decision?
“Having a long-term girlfriend is the same as being married.” She said that to test him more than anything.
“I don’t think so.”
He seemed so adamant. Demi couldn’t help the disappointment that gripped her. She’d always been secretly attracted to him, but their volatile relationship had not left any room for soft sentiments.
She had to ask. “Why? I mean, why not get married?”
“My mother died when I was young. It tore my father’s heart out and changed everything in our family.”
She had known he’d lost his mother just as she had. “Your dad remarried but she died last year, too” she said.
He nodded grimly. “He still grieves for her and my mother, but I’ve seen him improve over the last few weeks. He told me he does much better on his own.”
Alone. That sounded more like avoidance. “Better in the sense he doesn’t have to worry about losing anyone?” Everyone was happier when they weren’t alone. Humans weren’t meant to live alone.
“I think that’s why my brother turned into such a reprobate. He kept losing mothers. He may have felt abandoned, left to his own devices, especially after our mother died. My dad was no good for us during his mourning. He worked constantly and wasn’t really there for any of us. It ripped our family apart.”
Mourning that never stopped. His father must have drowned his sorrow in work and had been so consumed with it that he never had time with his kids. Maybe spending time with them had grown too painful. He’d had a family with two women he loved and both of them had been cruelly taken from him. His kids had been left to raise themselves.
Demi saw the coffee had finished brewing and poured two cups. “Sugar or cream?”
“Black.”
She poured cream into her coffee along with a sugar substitute, her one nonnegotiable indulgence. Taking the cups, she went to the kitchen island and handed him his black coffee.
“What about your stepmother?” She took a careful sip of the steaming brew.
“By the time she came along, we were accustomed to taking care of ourselves. She was nice and everything, but she wasn’t our mother and she never really tried to form any kind of bond with us. In all fairness, I don’t think she could have, even if she tried. We all felt the loss of our mother. It wasn’t just Dad who suffered.”
Demi leaned her hip against the countertop. “After my mother died, I started thinking about having a family. Being alone didn’t appeal to me. After I had Wolf, I realized I will never be alone. I will always have him. I can see why you wouldn’t want to get married. My father didn’t mourn the loss of any of his wives, but he wasn’t part of my life. He didn’t care about us. I would hate it if I ended up marrying a man like that. Even if he wasn’t exactly like my dad, even if he had redeeming qualities, if he doesn’t care about his kids, to me that is worse than if he died.”
“Then we agree.” He half grinned. “That sounds dangerous.” He sipped some coffee and put his cup down behind him and to his side on the counter.
Dangerous because they had that in common—something important? She wasn’t completely convinced. “In a way. I think there is too much importance placed on marriage, that too many people get married because that’s what everybody else does. That leads to bad decisions. That said, you can’t go through life expecting to lose the person you love if you marry them.”
“Why not? Everybody dies. There is no free ticket out of that one.”
“Well, no, obviously not,” she said, “but look at how many people live their entire lives with the one they married. Just because your dad lost both wives doesn’t mean you will.” It seemed a weak reason to avoid marriage. Then again, she’d avoid it, too, if she wasn’t sure the man would care deeply about his family.
“It’s more than marriage. It’s the whole idea of love.”
So, he refused to love out of fear he’d lose it the way his father had? “You’ll really go through your entire life never falling in love?” She felt another one of their notorious arguments coming on.
“Actually, I don’t think about it,” he said.
“You must, because you just told me you’ll never fall in love or get married.” He couldn’t have come to such a conclusion without first pondering the notion.
“Are we going to fight again?” he asked.
Feeling her ire rise, she practiced control. With Lucas that did not come easy.
“You’re just afraid,” she said, trying to tone down the edge in her voice.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to mourn over a woman, whether she leaves or dies, and I don’t want the family drama that comes with it. Ever.”
Like his father had. “Isn’t that a little narrow-minded?”
“Aren’t you narrow-minded when it comes to getting married? Trusting a man?”
He had her there. She couldn’t call out his flaws when she had her own. ”Marriage is also about trust, not just love. You either love the person you’re with or you don’t. Trust is a lot harder to gauge.”
“I’m not with anyone,” he said.
Come to think of it, she had never known him to be with a woman for any significant length of time. He dated often and he dated stereotypical beauties—fashion divas or sheltered, unadventurous women with not much going for them other than their looks. She bet he singled them out, knowing none of them would last.
Demi agreed that if you loved the person you were with and were sure you wanted to spend every waking moment with them for the rest of your life, then marriage didn’t matter. But trust did. You trusted your partner with your money and your home. You loved the man.
“Neither am I.”
“Then we’ve settled it. No love without trust because trust is too rare, and no marriage because marriage never works. Just companionship. That’s what both of us want.”
“Ooooh, something in common. How special.”
He angled his head in response to her mocking. “You brought it up.”
“What if you end up falling in love despite your best effort not to?” Her stomach did a flop when she realized she feared that as much as he did. What if she fell in love again?
“I won’t.”
Her ire rose again. How could he say that? She left her coffee on the counter and went to him.
“Then there’s no danger in doing this.” She put her hands on his chest and slid them upward as she leaned her body against his, looking up into his dark eyes with her best attempt at smoldering sexuality.
She saw the startled flinch in his eyes before he recovered.
“We’ve never tried this before,” she said. “We were always so busy arguing and beating each other to bounties that I doubt it ever crossed either one of our minds.”
“It crossed mine.”
It was her turn to be startled. He’d considered romancing