He’d rushed into marriage with Charlotte because, deep down, he’d been afraid that if she’d had the chance to change her mind, she would. And he’d been right.
Jason didn’t know what lunacy had prompted him to make her go through with the ceremony. To avoid embarrassment? Having their marriage annulled the following week would still embarrass him and his family. There was the problem, too, of returning all the wedding gifts. Eventually he’d have to face people. Make explanations.
He’d taken the easy way out, delaying the inevitable because of his pride.
Charlotte had wanted to cancel the wedding and he’d perversely refused to release her. So now they were stuck in Hawaii on a two-week honeymoon neither of them wanted. Stuck in each other’s company, in the bridal suite no less, until he could find a flight back to Seattle.
Once his eyes had adjusted to the dark, Jason made his way across the elegant room. Charlotte was still curled up on the bed, but the sheets and blankets were strewn about as though a storm had raged through.
He discovered a second and a third pillow hurled across the room. One was on the floor, the other dangling from a chair. It looked as if his bride had thrown a temper tantrum.
So she hadn’t liked it that he’d left. A smile played across his lips. It was the first time since he’d found her on the beach that she’d displayed any emotion.
The thought of Charlotte losing her temper pleased him, until he remembered she wasn’t given to bouts of anger. He felt a pang of concern but brushed it aside—it belonged to the past, to the old Charlotte, the one he’d loved.
Exhausted and depressed, he gazed about the room and noted that the bed was all she’d bothered to disarrange. Everything else in the room remained untouched.
Not knowing what to think, and too tired to care, he quietly stripped off his clothes and slipped beneath a rumpled sheet. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep, but his dreams were disturbing and he woke several times before morning.
Not once during the night did Charlotte move. She stayed on her side, facing away from him, never changing her position.
He woke in the morning, the bright sunshine slashing through the bedroom curtains. Charlotte was on her back, already awake. She shifted her head and stared at him with eyes so filled with pain that he hurt just looking at her.
“I lied when I said I didn’t love you, Jason,” she whispered and a tear rolled down the side of her face. “I do…so very much. I’m sorry…for everything I’ve done.”
He nodded, his throat thick. “I’m sorry, too, Charlotte.”
Thirteen
Charlotte closed her eyes because looking at Jason was so painful, knowing he hated her, knowing he’d never really forgive her for what she’d done.
“I lied when I said I wanted to marry you because of your family. I…ran away because I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
Her pulse scampered. She should’ve told him the truth weeks earlier. She’d agreed to be his wife; he had a right to know. But the truth was so easy to put off, so easy to deny. So hard to explain.
There’d been opportunities to tell him, plenty of them, although she’d tried to convince herself otherwise. She’d been too much of a coward to present Jason with the truth. And then, when time ran out, she’d panicked.
“Charlotte?” Jason said in a low voice. “What are you afraid of?”
She couldn’t explain that she was, to put it bluntly, afraid of sex. Of intimacy. That wasn’t what a man wanted to hear. Not just Jason, but any man.
He deserved so much more than she was capable of giving him. He deserved a woman who was emotionally whole and healthy. A woman who was physically responsive. Not someone scared and battle-weary and all but dead to her own sexuality.
“I owe you an explanation….”
“I’d say so,” he agreed, but his voice was devoid of the previous day’s sarcasm, without a trace of anger.
“I meant to tell you sooner. To give you the choice of going through with the wedding or not. But as time went on I—I couldn’t…and then it was too late.”
“Tell me now.”
Charlotte thought back to an age when she’d been innocent, vulnerable and naive. “My mother died while I was in high school. My father had abandoned us years earlier and I don’t think my mother ever recovered. If he contacted her at any point after he left, I didn’t know about it. She was different after he was gone. It was like she’d given up on life. She loved me, though—I know she did—and she’d been insightful enough to plan for my future.”
Jason’s hand reached across the bed for hers. Their fingers entwined and Charlotte was grateful for his touch.
“I met Tom my first year of college. He came from another state and was attending classes on a limited scholarship. He was intelligent and good-looking. When he asked me out, I was thrilled. He seemed to like me…. Later I realized it wasn’t me that attracted him, but the insurance money I’d received when my mother died. After a few months, we made love and…and he asked me to marry him. I didn’t have any family and…I desperately needed someone. I was too stupid to know why Tom really wanted to marry me. He saw marriage as a way of paying for his education without having to work for it.
“I dropped out of school after one semester and we got married. The money that was meant for my education went toward Tom’s while I got a full-time job to pay our living expenses.”
Jason’s hand flinched, tightening around hers.