Shelby thanked him and Justin muttered something before he escorted her out of the examination room and down the hall to pay the bill. By the time they were through and on their way back to the house, it was almost eight o"clock and dark outside.
Justin was quiet all the way home. Shelby knew why. It was the doctor"s very natural question about pregnancy. It had embarra.s.sed Justin and probably enraged him as well, because intimacy was such a bone of contention between them.
"You should have told him that we could get you in the Guinness Book of World Records if you got pregnant," he said through his teeth as he parked the car in the driveway and cut off the engine.
She turned her purse in her lap. Now that the tension was lifting, she only felt tired and sore. "What did you do with my car? It wasn"t on the highway when we came past the intersection."
His black eyes shifted toward her and then away. "You don"t want to talk about it, do you?"
"I"m frigid," she said dully. "Let"s just leave it at that, unless you want a divorce."
"I want a wife," he said harshly. "I want kids." His jaw tautened as he lifted his cigarette to his mouth. "Oh, G.o.d, I want kids, Shelby," he said in a faintly vulnerable tone.
That was something they"d never talked about, except in the very early days of their a.s.sociation. She leaned her head back against her seat, nibbling her lower lip and stared down at her lap. "You probably won"t believe it, but so do I, Justin."
He turned in his seat to look at her downcast face, his eyes dark and quiet. "How did you plan to get any without help?"
Her hands contracted on her purse. "I"m afraid," she said softly, because for once she was too tired to lie, to find excuses.
There was a long pause. "Well, childbirth isn"t really the terror it used to be, from all I"ve heard," he said, getting the wrong end of the stick. "And there are drugs they can give you for pain."
She looked up at him, shocked. "What?"
It was incredible that he believed she was afraid to have a child. She just stared at him without moving.
"It doesn"t have to be right away, either," he said doggedly, averting his gaze out the window, as if the subject embarra.s.sed him. It probably did. Shelby remembered that he"d always found it difficult to talk about things like pregnancy and that he never did discuss intimate matters in mixed company. In his own way, he was as reticent as she was. It was one of the things she"d always loved about him.
She was trying to understand what he meant when he took another draw from the cigarette and put it out. There was a dull flush across his cheekbones and he wouldn"t look at her.
"You could talk to the doctor about something to take," he said tersely. "Or I could use something. You don"t have to get pregnant if you don"t want to. I won"t force you to have a child."
She went beet red and stared out her window, her hands trembling and cold as the intimacy of what he was saying finally got through to her. She cleared her throat. "I...could we go inside now?" she whispered. "I"m tired and I ache all over."
"It"s hard for me to talk about it, too," he said quietly. "But I wanted you to know. To think it over. If that"s why you won"t let me touch you..."
"Oh, don"t!" She buried her face in her hands.
He sighed roughly. "I"m sorry. I shouldn"t have said anything." He got out and came around the car to help her out. "Did he give you any muscle relaxants or do I need to go to the drugstore for you?" he asked.
"He gave me some samples," she said. She walked alongside him up the steps, ashamed of the way she"d changed the subject and shied away from the discussion. She wanted to tell him what was wrong. But talking to Justin that way was so embarra.s.sing.
"You go on up and have an early night," he said, as remote as if he"d been talking to a total stranger. "I"ll have Maria bring you up some hot chocolate. Do you want anything to eat?"
"No, thank you." She paused at the foot of the staircase and smoothed her hand over the banister. She didn"t want to go. Her eyes lifted to his across the hall and she looked at him with hopeless longing and anguished shame. "I shouldn"t have married you," she whispered huskily. "I never meant to make you unhappy."
His jaw went taut. "I never meant to make you unhappy, either, but that"s what I"ve done."
She hesitated. "You never told me what you did with the sports car," she said after a minute. "Can"t I have it back?"
"Sure," he said, lifting his chin and pursing his lips. "We can have it made into an ashtray or a piece of modern art."
Her eyebrows shot up. "What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "It"s about five inches thick and four feet long by now. A bit big for an ashtray, I guess, but framed, it would make one h.e.l.l of a wall decoration."
"What are you talking about? What did you do with it?"
"I gave it to Old Man Doyle."
She turned her head slightly as the words registered. "He owns a junkyard."
He smiled faintly. "Sure does. He has a brand-new crusher. You know, one of those big machines that you use to push old cars into sc.r.a.p metal..."
She flushed. "You did that on purpose!"
"You"re d.a.m.ned right I did," he said with a glittery challenge in his eyes. "If I"d taken it back to the car lot, I couldn"t be sure that you wouldn"t rush right down there and buy it again. This way," he added, pulling his hat low over his eyes, "I"m sure."
"I still owe for it! It was a lot of money!"
He smiled pleasantly. "I"m sure you can explain it to the insurance company. Atmospheric pressure? Termites...?"
She was stuck for a reply when he turned and went into the kitchen.
She went up the staircase, smoldering. It had been an upsetting day all around, and it wasn"t improving. Her mind whirled with questions and problems.
At first, she hadn"t wanted to take the muscle relaxants, but she got sore as the night wore on. Finally she gave in, downing them with a sip of cooling hot chocolate. She put on her gray satin pajamas and climbed under the covers. Minutes later, she was asleep.
But then the dreams started. Over and over again, she could see herself in the sports car, but in Switzerland. She"d been speeding around the Alps with skill and ease until she was almost at the bottom of a mountain. She"d hit a patch of ice and all her experience at the wheel hadn"t been able to save her. The car, that time, had rolled. And rolled. And rolled.
She was pitching down the side of the white mountain, sky and snow combining in a terrible descent. She waited for the impact, waited, screaming...
Hands lifted her from the pillow, gently shaking her.
"It"s all right," someone said. "It"s all right. Wake up, Shelby, you"re dreaming."
She snapped awake as if a switch had been thrown in her brain. Justin was holding her, his black eyes narrow with concern.
"The car..." she whispered. "It was pitching down the mountain."
"You were dreaming, little one," he said. He smoothed the dark tangle of her hair away from her flushed cheeks and her shoulders. "Only dreaming. You"re safe now."
"I always was, with you," she said involuntarily, leaning her head on his shoulder. She sighed heavily, relaxed now, secure. Her cheek moved and he stiffened, and she realized that she was resting on bare skin, not a pajama top.
The light was on and he was sitting beside her on the bed, his dark hair tousled. She almost lost her nerve when she lifted her cheek away from his muscular upper arm, but she breathed easily when she saw that he was only bare from the waist up. He was wearing dark silk pajama trousers, but his muscular chest was completely bare. Thick black hair curled down to the low waistband of the pajamas, and the very sight of him was breathtaking.
Shelby felt her breath catch at all that masculinity so close to her. She knew without being told that he wasn"t wearing anything under those trousers, and it made her feel threatened.
"Did you take those pills the doctor gave you?" he asked quietly.
"Yes. They made the aching stop, but now I"m having nightmares." She laughed jerkily. She pushed back her thick cloud of hair, glancing up at him apprehensively. "Did I wake you?"
"Not really." He sighed. "I don"t sleep well these days. It doesn"t take much to wake me. I heard you scream."
She didn"t sleep well, either, and probably for the same reason. She locked her arms around her knees, curling up to rest her forehead there. "Today"s accident brought back the wreck I had in Switzerland," she murmured drowsily. "I was concussed and I kept drifting in and out." She moved her forehead against the soft satin. "They told me I called for you night and day after they brought me to the hospital," she said without meaning to.
"Me, and not your lover?" he asked coldly.
"I"ve never had a lover, Justin," she said shyly.
"Sure. And I"m the king of Siam." He got to his feet, looking down at her half angrily. She was lovely in those satin pajamas. He"d never thought about what she wore to sleep in, but now he was sure he"d think of nothing else. The jacket was low-cut and he"d had a deliciously tempting glimpse of her firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s when she"d first come awake. They were small, he thought speculatively, but perfectly formed if their outline under that jacket was anything to go by. His eyes narrowed and he had to pull his gaze away, because he wanted to look at them with a hunger that made him go rigid.
He turned away. "If you"re all right, I"ll go back and try to sleep. I"ve got an early appointment in town at the bank."
She watched him go with a deep sadness. The distance between them grew all the time, and she was making him unhappier by the day. "Thank you for coming to see about me," she said dully.
He paused with his hand on the doork.n.o.b, his gaze concerned. "You"d die before you"d do it, I know," he said slowly. "But if you get frightened again, you can double up with me." He laughed coldly. "It"s safe enough, in case you"re worried. I won"t risk my ego again with you."
He was gone before she could contradict him. She winced at the pain those words had revealed. She felt worse than ever, knowing how she"d hurt him.
And it was so unnecessary. All she had to do was tell him. For G.o.d"s sake, she was twenty-seven years old! Yes, and sheltered to the point of obsession by her money-hungry father, who"d been afraid to lose her to a poor man. She"d never even been kissed intimately until the night they got engaged. She wondered if he knew that.
He probably didn"t, she decided. She got out of bed and turned on the light, heading for the door. Maybe it was time she told him.
Chapter Six.
It didn"t occur to her until she was out in the hall, barefooted, at Justin"s door, that three o"clock in the morning wasn"t the best time to share intimate secrets with a man who"d gone starving for physical satisfaction since his marriage. She hesitated, nibbling her lower lip. The light was still on in his room, but it was pretty quiet in there.
She frowned, wondering what to do, and brushed back her unruly hair with a sigh.
"He"s not in there," came a soft, deeply amused voice at her back.
She whirled to find Justin behind her, holding a jigger of whiskey. "What are you doing out here?" she asked.
"Watching you prowl the halls. What were you planning to do, go in there and rape me?"
She burst out laughing. It bubbled up from some unknown place, and her eyes twinkled up at him. "I don"t know how," she confessed.
He actually smiled. She was pretty when she laughed. She was pretty any way at all. He lifted the whiskey ruefully. "I thought it might help me sleep," he said.
"I"m afraid nothing"s going to help me," she murmured. She shifted from one bare foot to the other, aware of his curious scrutiny and her own loud heartbeat.
"Do you want to sleep with me?" he asked.
She flushed. "That wasn"t the only reason I came." She glanced up and then down again at his own bare, very big feet. "Did you know that n.o.body had ever kissed me intimately until you did?"
He blinked. "You came down the hall at three o"clock in the morning to tell me that?"
She shrugged. "It seemed pretty important at the time," she said. She looked up at him sadly, her pale green eyes searching his lean, craggy face, his sensuous mouth, the firm, hair-roughened muscles of his chest and stomach. "It"s amazing," she murmured, her eyes fascinated by the bare expanse of brown muscle.
"What is?" He frowned, watching the way her eyes went over him. It was disturbing. Surely she knew that.
"That you don"t have to chase women out of your room with a broom handle," she murmured absently.
His eyebrows arched. "Have you been into my brandy snifter?"
"I guess it sounds that way, doesn"t it?" She raised her eyes to his. "Can I sleep with you, Justin? I"m still pretty shaky. If..." She cleared her throat and looked away. "If it won"t bother you too much, I mean. I don"t want to make things any worse for you than they already are."
"I"m not sure they could get worse," he said quietly. He searched her wide, soft eyes. "All right. Come on."
She followed him inside. She"d never been in his room before, although she"d been by it a number of times and had peeked in curiously.
The furniture was old. Antique, like that in the house she"d grown up in. She wondered if it went far back in his family, if he"d inherited it from his parents. She smoothed her hand over a long bedpost, admiring the slickly polished wood of the four-poster and the beige and brown striped sheets on the bed.
"I didn"t think you liked colored sheets," she said conversationally. "Maria said you didn"t."
"I don"t," he said curtly. "Maria does. She swears that she lost all the white sheets and had to replace them."
"Well, these are nice," she murmured.
"Climb in."
He held the top sheet back and let her slide under it. "I"ll adjust the air-conditioning if it"s too cool in here to suit you," he offered.
"No, it"s fine," she said. "I hate a hot bedroom, even in winter."
He smiled faintly. "So do I." He turned off the light and came back to the bed. The mattress lowered as he sat down, obviously finishing off his whiskey.
"You, uh, you do sleep in pajama bottoms?" she asked, grateful for the darkness that spared her blushes.
He actually laughed. "Oh, my G.o.d."
"Well, you don"t have to make fun of me," she muttered, fluffing the pillow before she laid her head on it.
"I always thought you were a sophisticated girl," he said pleasantly. "You know, the liberated sort with a string of men on your sleeve and the kind of sophistication that goes with champagne and diamonds."
"Boy, were you in for a shock," she murmured. "Until you came along, I"d only dated one man, and the most he did was to make a grab for me and get himself slapped. My father was obsessed with keeping me innocent until he could sell me to someone who"d make him even richer. But you don"t know that, of course. You think he"s a saint."
He switched on the light. His eyes were black and steady on hers, noticing the flush that covered her cheeks.
"Will you turn that off, please?" she asked tightly. "If I"m going to talk about such things, I can"t look at you and do it."
"Prude," he accused.