all Ash could bring himself to say, his voice terse as he half turned away from her to conceal from her his own disgust with himself. How could he have been so lost to all sense of what it meant to be a father to have allowed his desire to drive him towards an action that might have endangered the twins’ safety and Sophia’s physical comfort? He was disgusted with himself.
‘The twins?’ was all Sophia could manage to repeat as she tried to cling to the remnants of her dignity, pulling it around herself in much the same way in which she was now drawing her open robe around her body.
After the realisation that she loved Ash, his appearance in her bedroom and then her hopes heightened by what had looked as though it was going to turn into intense lovemaking, his rejection of her now was unbearably painful.
‘I don’t want …’ Ash began, but Sophia was in no mood to let him continue. Where there had been hope and arousal, there was now disappointment, hurt and anger—the hurt anger of a feisty woman who wanted her man but who was being rejected by him.
‘You don’t want me any more now that I’m pregnant, is that what you were going to say? I’m carrying your sons so you don’t have to have sex with me any more, is that it? What about that sexual chemistry between us you spoke of when you were persuading me to marry you, Ash, or did that only exist when you were thinking about me conceiving your heir? Or maybe it’s just that you don’t find me desirable now that I’m pregnant. But whatever the case, I want you to know that coming here and … and … and doing what you did and then rejecting me isn’t the kind of behaviour I expect from a man like you. It’s … it’s cruel and … and unfair.’ Her voice was becoming thick with the tears she was determined not to unleash. Ash was standing with his face averted from her, and not moving at all.
He was ignoring her, blocking her out, distancing himself from her. Because he didn’t want her in his life at all, really? Because he never had and he never would?
It was too much for her to endure.
‘Did you ever really desire me at all, Ash, or was it just something you forced yourself to pretend?’
‘No.’ The denial was ripped from Ash’s throat before he could silence it, the sheer intensity of the emotions inside him that had broken through physically forcing him to turn round, and look at Sophia. ‘Of course I wanted you.’ He wanted her now. He wanted to go to her and take hold of her and show her how wrong she was, but he had her to think of, and the twins. He was a husband and a father-to-be now and not just a man burning and driven by his own shameful lusts.
‘But you haven’t been near me for weeks, and just now …’
‘I was thinking of the twins and of you. I didn’t want …’ It was so hard for him to admit to any kind of emotional vulnerability but his moral need to set the record straight was stronger than his need to protect his defences.
‘I didn’t want to risk hurting them or … or you. You are so small and you are carrying two babies.’
There was a huge lump in Sophia’s throat. She couldn’t deny the truth she could hear in Ash’s voice. She couldn’t argue against such an obviously genuine explanation. But why couldn’t he have told her that before?
‘I’m a woman, Ash. I’m designed by nature to carry your sons safely. And women do have sex when they’re pregnant, you know.’
‘I didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks.’
Yes, she understood his fears. But why couldn’t he have opened up to her and explained what was in his thoughts? He couldn’t because Ash didn’t deal in emotions.
The warmth she had felt when he had explained why he had stayed away from her had turned to the cold chill of a returning fear that was already worrying her, namely that Ash would not be able to relate emotionally to his sons and that he would keep them at a distance, because he no longer knew how to relate emotionally to others.
Ash saw the pain darkening Sophia’s eyes and the sadness shadowing her face. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ he asked her.
‘I know how much the twins mean to you, Ash, but I’m worried that they’ll never know, because you will never be able to show them or tell them how much they mean to you. I’m afraid that you’ll distance yourself from them in the same way that you distance yourself from me. I know how much that hurts, having a father who doesn’t seem to care. That kind of thing can hurt a child so very badly and make them feel so rejected. A child can’t rationalise that it might just be that a father does care but can’t show those feelings. I want our sons to know the real Ash, the Ash that I knew whilst I was growing up, the kind, understanding, always ready to listen, happy Ash whom I loved so much. I want you to be that Ash for our children, but I’m afraid that they will never know him, because the Ash you feel you have to be now has locked him away and will never let him be free to enjoy his children and to love them.’
Every emotion-filled, spoken-from-the-heart word Sophia offered felt a like a seismic shock deep inside Ash that shook him to the core. He knew with a flash of insight and at the most powerful deepest intense level of himself that Sophia’s words had touched a nerve, set in motion a reaction like the clicking open of a series of locks that had opened doors inside him that showed him an inescapable truth. That truth was that he couldn’t bear to be the man Sophia had just described to him, the man who whilst loving his children could not reach out to them and so left them to feel that he didn’t care, and the husband who wanted and needed his wife so much that he was filled with fear because of those feelings.
‘Sophia!’ Her name broke from his heart and tore at his lungs, his stride towards her to reach her swift and slightly uncoordinated, his breathing unsteady. A fine tremor gripped his body as he held her hands in his own and told her thickly, ‘I promise you that I will be the father you want me to be for our sons, that I will try to be the Ash you remember for them and that they will never, ever have to doubt my love for them.’
‘Oh, Ash.’
‘And as for me not wanting you …’
He was kissing her so sweetly and tenderly, drawing her close to his body so that she could feel for herself his desire for her, that it was impossible for Sophia not to respond.
‘I don’t want to hurt you or the babies,’ Ash was whispering to her in a voice raw with a desire he wasn’t making any attempt to hide.
‘You won’t,’ Sophia assured him. ‘We can be careful and make it slow and sweet, and …’
The violent shudder that racked Ash’s body told her more than any words how much hers had affected him. But when he carried her to the bed and then carefully undressed her to gaze reverentially at her naked body, it was her turn to tremble with the intensity of her emotions.
Had she really thought that Ash might be turned off by the changes in her body? If so he was showing her now just how wrong she had been, with the warmth of the long, slow, deep kiss he was giving her.
All the new sweetness of the lives they had created together and the love she had now discovered for him were in Sophia’s response to Ash. Her lips clung to his, her arms reaching out to hold him, her heart melting with the tide of feeling that swept through her when Ash placed his hand on the rounding shape of her body. There was something so inexpressibly tender and special about such a touch, about the contact between father and child, and the warmth of his caress on her own skin at the same time conveying to her body a sense of care and protection.
But
