“She’s mine, Will. Since the day she was born. I had Mattie and her sister for support, but I was the one who stayed up with her at night. I was the one who changed her and fed her and washed her and protected her. Donna had a family of her own. And one day, even Mattie is going to find someone and want to have a family of her own. I’m the only person who’ll never leave her, Will. And she might need to be cared for… for the rest of her life. There’s no way to know right now…” She was breathing hard and her eyes were bright with intensity and emotion. “Men, even men who are fathers, can always walk away. Mine left me and Mom… Jimmy wanted no part of Violet… Fathers walk away. They have for centuries…”

“But I’m not going anywhere,” I said, taking her possessively in my arms. “Not now, not ever.”

“I don’t think any man plans to,” she answered. “But it happens every day. And I won’t give you the power to take her away from me if you go…”

“Angel… my God.” I stared at her. “Do you honestly believe I would…”

“I don’t want the paternity test, Will. I won’t give my permission, and I’ll fight you on it, if I have to.

I want you… I love you, Will…,” she said finally. “It’s taken me all this time to say it, and I do love you. But I can’t take the chance.” She shook her head and I watched dark tears stream down her face. “I told you at the club that I could never be a submissive. And I meant it, Will. Maybe there’s no point in denying that sex between us is…”

“Primal… Hot… Erotic as fuck…?”

“You tie me up and you dominate me.”

“And you can’t imagine it any other way,” I said, intently. “It’s the same for me.”

Her eyes shifted away, but not before I saw the truth in them. “It’s all I ever wanted since the very first time,” she admitted. “But I never… It was never… not with anyone but you…”

“I know.” I turned her face back to mine. “It’s the closest you allow yourself to come, to trusting me. That’s why you need it, that’s the reason you crave the experience. Because deep inside, all of us have to find that one person they can trust with their whole heart and soul.” I gripped her arms and held her to me. “You know as well as I do that it’s part of us. Part of the unbreakable bond between us… Hell, it was part of finding each other again.”

“I can’t put my needs before Violet’s,” she whispered. “It doesn’t matter what I want… how I feel. Her life, her little world, has finally become stable and secure. If things between us didn’t work out…”

“You would disappear again? This time with a child you knew was mine, too…”

“You don’t understand the responsibilities of being a parent, Will.”

“I don’t,” I admitted. “And I never will. Until you can learn to trust me.”

And the evening was suddenly and abruptly over.

She’d stared at me for a long time, both of us silent, neither knowing the next step. It had felt like an impasse. And then she’d climbed off my lap and slipped away without another word. I was angry, frustrated… mostly with myself. If only I’d handled it differently… I reached into my pocket and pulled out the black velvet box.

I’d gone straight from Harry’s office to the jeweler’s. The order I’d placed weeks ago was finally ready. I opened the box and six stunning carats of antique diamond flirted and winked in the firelight. It belonged on her finger, warmed by her flesh the way she warmed my heart. I should have started here, I thought, snapping the box shut. By offering my heart before I asked her to give hers.

I paused in the kitchen long enough to shut off the oven and pour myself a scotch. I tossed it down in a single swallow and climbed the staircase to my room. Our room…

We were supposed to be together tonight, Angel. You, with my ring on your finger and me… spilling myself inside you. It should have been the first night of a thousand more to come. Of a life together… of every need being met.

I stripped down and climbed into the shower. I let the water run hard and cold, but it did no good. I was hard from the moment I’d taken her into my arms. I gripped my cock and jerked it punishingly. I wanted the oblivion of sleep and this was the only way. But I wasn’t looking for pleasure. I pounded myself to a fast, explosive climax, spilling useless seed against the cold glass of the stall. It was empty and heartless, just a path to unconsciousness. For my heart was with my angel. And the empty space in my chest was all that was left behind.