LITMIR.BIZ

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hers.

      “We’ll take the elevator down and I’ll show you the theatres, the pools and a few of the club and casino lounges.”

      “Okay.” She whipped her hair back to look up at him. “So, you’re glad you invited me along?”

      His lips twitched. “I didn’t invite you.”

      “You wish you had.”

      “Maybe.” He glanced at her, gave her hand a squeeze, then steered her into an elevator.

      There were mirrors on every surface and Rita couldn’t help but look at him. The man was so gorgeous, she could have stared at him for hours. His features were strong and sharp and had been honed down over the last several months, giving him the look of a saint with a wicked side.

      He met her gaze in the mirror and just for a second, the power of his stare was enough to punch her heart into a frantic beat.

      “You okay?”

      “Fine,” she said, though she really wasn’t. How could she be, when she was in love with a man who didn’t want to be loved?

      The elevator stopped with a ding and he announced, “First stop, Deck Three.”

      Just like the rest of the ship, it was elegant and luxurious, from the brass sconces on the walls to the dark ruby carpet on the floor. Then her gaze focused on the solid white surface stretching out in front of them. “There’s an ice-skating rink?”

      He laughed. “We’ve got everything.”

      Her imagination completed the picture, with families moving across the ice, laughing, making memories. She could almost hear them echoing in the now-empty space.

      “Oh, I miss skating,” she said, and rubbed one hand over her belly. “But my center of gravity’s a little whacked right now, so...”

      “Yeah, well, you can always skate when you’re back in Utah after the baby’s born.”

      It was a slap. A reminder. Don’t get comfortable, he was saying. I won’t let you in. I won’t let you stay. I won’t let myself care.

      Rita almost swayed with the emotional impact, but she locked her knees because she couldn’t let him see what he could so easily do to her. She wanted to argue with him, tell him she loved him and she wasn’t going anywhere. But Rita remembered that she’d made the decision to simply not engage when he pulled back. When he tried to shut her out. So she smiled instead, though that small curve of her mouth cost her more than he would ever know.

      “Yes. There’s plenty of time for skating after the baby.” She looked around. “Where’s the theatre? What movie’s playing?”

      “Not a movie theatre,” he said, frowning at her, as if waiting for her real reaction to what he’d said. “It’s for live shows. The movies are up on Deck Eight, along with a spa and a casino and stuff for the kids and—” He broke off. “Hell, who can remember it all?”

      “So, show me.” She started walking in the direction he’d pointed. He was still holding her hand though and tugged her to a stop.

      “Rita, last night, what I told you—”

      “It’s okay, Jack. Whatever you tell me is safe with me,” she assured him.

      “It’s not that. It’s...” He paused, took a breath and then released it again. “I want you to know that I made a vow to myself. You keep telling me how I’m keeping my family—and you—at a distance. You’re right. But it’s with a purpose. I swore I would never put anyone in the position of mourning me—and now I’ve got you. And the baby. And if I let my family get close again, let you get close, then I risk causing pain. I won’t do it.”

      She didn’t even know what to say to that.

      “Rita—” His eyes were shadowed. “Bottom line, I don’t want to hurt you.”

      Foolish man. Couldn’t he see that’s exactly what he was doing? Did he really believe that causing pain now was better than later? His family was already in pain because they couldn’t reach him. And she knew just how they felt. But Rita knew he wouldn’t want to hear that.

      “Good.” She nodded sharply. “I don’t want to hurt you, either.”

      “Great. But my point is...”

      “Oh, don’t worry so much, Jack.” She looked at him and the sunlight filtering through all the windows threw golden light across his face. “I get it. Nothing’s changed. You’re still locking yourself away from the world to save the rest of us.”

      He didn’t want to hurt her, but he didn’t want to love her, either. She had to force a smile again and he would never know how much it cost her.

      He frowned. “That’s—”

      Rita kept her voice light, as she added, “Not important right now. I said I don’t want to hurt you, but I might if you don’t show me where the closest bathroom is. Honestly, this baby must be camped out on my bladder.”

      “Oh. Right.” With the subject neatly changed, he led her down one side of the ship and waited as she went inside.

      Rita hadn’t really needed the bathroom, for a change. What she’d needed was a minute or two to herself. To think. To search her heart and find the strength to keep pretending that he couldn’t rip a chunk out of her soul with a word.

      She gripped the edge of the black marble countertop and stared into the mirror at her own reflection. Her eyes had so many things to say and she didn’t want to hear any of them. Maybe she was being foolish for loving a man who so clearly wasn’t interested in making the same kind of commitment.

      But how could she simply stop?

      Besides, the very fact that he was trying to warn her off, save her from him, told her that he did care. More than he wanted to.

      “And, it’s not like you get a choice about who you love,” she told her reflection. And scowled a little when her mirror image mocked her. “Fine,” she admitted, “even if I had a choice, I’d still choose him.”

      Did that make her a martyr? An idiot? “Neither,” she decided, staring into her own eyes. “It makes me Rita Marchetti Buchanan. I love him. It’s as simple as that, really.”

      Nodding to herself, she shook her hair back, gave her baby belly a consoling rub, then lifted her chin and went back to face her husband with a smile.

      * * *

      The next few days weren’t easy. Jack had expected Rita to be a little more...depressed, he guessed, about the fact that he’d brushed off their night of sex as changing nothing.

      Of course, it had, he just couldn’t admit that. Not to himself and certainly not to her. But the truth was, now that he’d been with her again, that was all he could think about.

      Apparently, though, Rita was having a much easier time of it. She’d moved on as if she’d felt nothing and that he knew was a damn lie. He’d watched her, heard her, felt her response to their lovemaking. But she’d set it all aside and rather than being relieved, Jack was just a little ticked off. What the hell?

      She wasn’t talking about it and he’d fully expected her to go all female on him. Women always wanted to talk. To share. The fact that Rita wasn’t bugged him. He couldn’t put his finger on what was happening and that bothered him, too. Jack felt off balance somehow and he wasn’t sure when that had happened.

      His new reality was simply marching on as if nothing had changed at all. Every morning, since he refused to have her drive across town all by herself at four thirty in the morning, he was up and taking her to the bakery. Where she made him coffee and fresh pastries and they had breakfast together while she talked nonstop, telling him stories about her family, talking about her plans for the bakery, refusing to accept his silence.

      She pushed him for

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