“I started to tell you the night of the charity bazaar, but Sergey arrived with news of your family, and my troubles were nothing in comparison to your loss. I tried again last night, but then . . .”
“Then what? You became distracted by falling stars and music under the moon?”
“You asked me not to say anything and if we could have one night for ourselves. I tried to think clearly, not to be selfish, but how could I deny you?”
“This is my fault?” She hiked an eyebrow, daring him to accuse her.
“No. It’s mine. I should have told you from the beginning, but I wanted to try to salvage things. My name and career were being dragged through the mud. They still are. I wanted my name to free you from disgrace, not tarnish you.”
“Did you not think I had a right to know? After all, it is my name now. Or was your plan to patch it all up before I ever found out? Blissful are the ignorant after all.”
“I wanted to keep you safe from one more bad thing happening. To keep you from hurt.”
Had she not proven her strength time and time again? “I am not some fragile piece of glass threatening to shatter at any moment, unlike your ego.” The sharpened words recalled from that night in the solarium during the charity bazaar hit their mark squarely. She wished she hadn’t.
Wynn’s expression darkened to a shade of brewing thunder. He crossed the floor to her in three long strides, stopping close enough for her to see the unloosened storm.
“How easy do you think it is for a man to admit failure to his wife? Everything I have ever worked for has been snatched away. My honor and reputation have been slandered because a young man died on my operating table for a procedure fueled by my arrogance to prove a point. Patients die every day. It’s part of a surgeon’s cruel reality, but I’m the one they’ve chosen to crucify in order to prove that methods cannot and should not be changed. Every hour I wonder if they’re not right about me, but intuition gained over years of experience is quick to swoop in and reassure me that everything I did in that operating theater was for the betterment of my patient. So yes, my ego, my pride is to blame. My savior and my destroyer. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
The full gust of his anger blasted across her, revealing a man raked of his dignity struggling to piece himself together with the tatters that remained. She should go to him, comfort him, tell him she understood. But she couldn’t. He had promised honesty but betrayed her instead. Oh, how she missed her armor of isolation and self-preservation. She may not be able to slip back into it, but she would not be caught defenseless again.
She gathered the folds of her velvet robe and tightened the sash. “If it is the truth, yes. What other lies have you told me?”
“None, I swear. I was only trying to protect you by keeping this from you.”
“What kind of protection is lying?”
“The kind that loves you. That wants to spare you any further hurt in this world and provide you with an honorable name so you can wake up each morning without worry.” He reached for her.
She stepped back as the disappointment and pain grappled in her heart. These months together as man and wife had become some of the best in her life as she discovered what it meant to take comfort in another. They had shared in the joys and agonies, but now to discover she and Wynn were not as she’d thought them to be hurt her in a way that would not have been possible if she’d remained invulnerable.
“How can you speak of love and honor when you’ve withheld something so important? I may not be well-versed in the subject, but I know deception holds no place in true affection.”
His arms dropped, hands clenching at his sides. Each word that came out was clipped with restraint. “Aye, I kept the truth of Harkin’s death and my revoked license from you, but never doubt my affection for you. Never. Everything from last night was the truth.”
“I do not wish to discuss last night.”
“Last night was the most honest moment of my life. I love—”
“No! You justify yourself and expect me to follow along blindly, which I did. All I wanted was for you to rely on me as I
have on you, and now that reliance lays scattered between us in broken pieces.”
The thunder dissipated from his eyes, churning them to the unsteady brown-green of the ocean after a storm. “My greatest concern has only ever been for your welfare. I’ve made mistakes along the way. Not telling you the truth of my troubles from the beginning being the biggest, and for that I’m truly sorry. I wanted the burden on myself. Never to fall on you. You have become too precious to me to be crushed under the weight of my failure.”