He was trying to take control of her life, and she wasn’t sure if she was grateful or overwhelmed. Both, she realised.
‘Flora.’
The sound of command in her name stopped her mid-sentence.
‘Why are you avoiding the question?’
She pointed her toes and rose on the balls of her feet. ‘Which one?’ she asked. Because maybe she wasn’t ready to give her thoughts voice. To part the rational ones from the illogical. ‘Marrying you or taking your name?’
‘There’s only one question—which you understand perfectly.’
‘I do,’ she admitted.
‘But you’re not ready to answer it?’
She already knew the answer, didn’t she? Hadn’t she already decided?
She had, but she’d only accepted theideaof marriage. Now he was actually asking. Now he was making the possibility a reality.
And she didn’t want the answer to be decided for her. She wanted to be an active participant in her own life. Not just pulled along on someone else’s schedule—someone else’s plan for her.
‘Do I really have a choice?’ she said. ‘Or did you ask simply because I requested that you did? If I hadn’t brought it up, would you have simply lifted anchor and sailed away to Sicily?’
‘Yes. I would have.’
She folded her hands across her midriff and looked at her untouched plate.Honesty.She appreciated that. But—
‘If I don’t give you an answer now,’ she asked, and reached for her fork, moved it beside her knife, ‘what will you do?’
‘I will wait.’
Her eyes snapped to his. ‘Until you get the answer you want?’
‘Until you give me the answer that is yours and yours alone.’
Hers and hers alone? She sucked in a deep lungful of air and held it in her chest until it burned. ‘What if you have to wait for ever?’
‘For ever is a long time,’ he said. ‘But I’m asking for for ever.’
He shrugged in a gesture of indifference. Because he knew she’d give the answer he wanted and this was just a play for time?
‘It only seems fair you ask for the same from me,’ he finished, and her heart squeezed. ‘But I do not understand your hesitation about marri—’
‘My hesitation has everything to do with my life beforethis. Beforeyou. Because then I didn’t have choices. I just acted. I don’t want to just act. Take the next inevitable step,’ she corrected. ‘I want to be an active participant in my life. In my decisions.’
‘Explain it to me,’ he urged. ‘Tell me about how your life has been.’
‘My parents always encouraged me to do the right thing. To be logical—rational. In control. To ignore my feelings and embrace structure. If I was ever in doubt, I followed the path of routine. Other people’s plans for my life.’
‘And you chose to do this why?’
‘It was all I ever knew. And following someone else’s plan was always easier because it made my parents happy. I was home-schooled...sheltered...’
‘Sheltered?’
‘From anything that might have...’ Flora hesitated.
‘Introduced you to something that could sway your tendencies towards addiction?’
