Marriage, for Christ’s sake. How much further could a guy go?
The cold ache in his gut had entirely vanished at the idea. He went back inside, with the intention of creeping into the bedroom, lying down beside her, and watching as she slept. Then he saw the eerie blue glow of a computer monitor emanating from one of the couches.
Nell sat there cross-legged, wrapped in one of his bathrobes, tip-pity-tapping on her laptop. She must have felt the breeze from the door, but she did not look up. She just worked on, utterly absorbed.
He must have stared for ten minutes before she took notice of him. Her smile was wan. “Hi. I woke up. Couldn’t get back to sleep.”
He stepped in. “What are you doing?”
“I had an idea for the last level of the game,” she said.
The freaking game was the last thing he wanted to talk about, but he wasn’t sure of a smooth way to shift topics and get from here to there. And a proposal of marriage had to be a segue as smooth as oil.
He swallowed, closed the door, strolled across the room toward her. “What’s the idea?”
Her voice was strangely businesslike. “As it is now, the player rescues the princess only if he garners sufficient points and collects all the magical weapons necessary to defeat the Sorcerer. If the player is clever and ruthless and forgets nothing, he gets the princess. It’s a very simple, banal, mercantile sort of exchange. It’s cold.”
The tension was back in his gut again. This was one of those dangerous conversations with undercurrents, where a phrase like “pass the butter” could blow up in his face and kill him. “Hardly simple,” he muttered. “You have to sweat blood to make it through all those levels.”
“I propose something different,” she went on. “These tricks should get the player through the Sorcerer’s defenses and to the door of the enchanted tower, but no farther. I propose one last barrier. To win the game, the player must make a leap of blind faith. Go against everything his senses and past experience tell him. To break the last spell, he has to leave his weapons and spells behind, and do something crazy. Dive headfirst into a pit of snakes. Jump into the mouth of a dragon. Walk into a wall of flames. He has to…to sacrifice himself for love.”
Duncan’s fingers bit into the top of the couch. She was still pissed. And fucking with his head. Brutally. He fought with his anger.
“I’ve been playing with a short text that could be inserted,” she went on. “Something like ‘only empty hands and a full heart shall pass through the wall of flames unburned’. This way, it’s not just cleverness that wins the game. It’s faith, and courage. And love.”
“It would make the game impossible to win,” Duncan said.
“That’s not true for everyone,” Nell replied. “Just for you.”
A muscle pulsed in Duncan’s jaw. “What are you saying, Nell? No symbolism, no bullshit. Could I have it in plain English, just this once?”
Nell wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. “I think we understand each other perfectly,” she said quietly.
He circled the couch and sat down next to her. This was probably futile, given her unapproachable mood, but he had to get it off his chest. “You’re cold,” he said, grabbing the afghan off the couch. He wrapped it around her. “I don’t want to talk about the game right now. We need to talk about us. I’ve been thinking.”
“Me, too,” Nell said quietly.
“I’ve decided that the best thing would be for us to get married.”
Dead silence greeted that statement. Her eyes were huge and startled. “What?” she squeaked.
Duncan cracked his knuckles uneasily. “I was thinking about the situation after you went to sleep. And I decided that—”
“You decided?” Her voice was deceptively calm.
Duncan paused, sensing a pitfall. “Well, uh, of course your agreement is crucial to the plan,” he said cautiously.
“So I should hope,” Nell murmured.
“After I explain my reasoning to you, you’ll see that it would be the best thing for both of us.”
“Oh, really.”
Nell’s voice sounded strange, almost strangled.
“Yes. Let me explain.” He presented his analysis, during which Nell was ominously silent. The chill in his gut was a lump of ice by the time he concluded his well-balanced, watertight, foolproof argument.
Nell tugged the afghan around herself and looked into his eyes. “Do you love me, Duncan?”
He closed his eyes, sighing. Aw, fuck. She had to say it. She just had to insist. “Goddamn it, Nell,” he snapped, “that’s not the point.”
Nell shook her head. “I think it is the point,” she replied. “In fact, I think it’s the only point.”
“Marriage is about partnership. Trust. The long haul. Not a bunch of stupid platitudes that don’t mean a goddamn thing! If I had you on staff full-time, we could—”
“Duncan, I’ve studied for years for my advanced degree. I want to teach literature,” Nell said quietly. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
Duncan threw up his hands in disgust. “You’re being deliberately difficult. Tell me what you’d make as a professor. I’ll top it.”
“If I wanted money, I would’ve gone to business school.”
“We’re straying from the issue,” he ground out. “We’re good together. If you would let go of your lofty romantic ideas—”
“Marriage is not a merger. Love is not a stupid platitude. If I was as detached and cool as you are, it might work. But I’m not.” Her voice faltered for a moment. “I’m in love with you,” she finished, softly.
Love. Jesus, all he wanted was to be honest with her, to be fair. Not to lie or manipulate her with falsehoods. And this was what he got. His chest felt like it was in a trash compactor. Getting squished, smaller and smaller, into something as cold and hard as a diamond.
Nell rewrapped the afghan around herself. “And the worst part of this is that I think you love me, too, but you can’t or won’t see it.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel. I’m not talking about feelings. I’m talking about real things, concrete things. Commitment, fidelity, protection, everything I have. And children, too, if you want them. I thought that if you cared for me at all, you’d be pleased.”
It took her a while to respond to that. “I don’t ‘care for you,’ Duncan,” she said, her voice small. “I love you. Greedy Nell. Always asking for more. And besides, feelings are real. Mine certainly are. What would it cost you to admit that you love me? Is it just a control thing? You have to have the upper hand? You can’t give in to a strong feeling?”
“They’re not necessary,” he retorted. “None of this drama is necessary.”
“This is about your father, right? You hated him for calling what he did love. You have to be his opposite. No matter what.”
That deep-froze him. “Don’t talk about my father,” he said.
The tone in his voice made her lean back, her eyes big.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t marry you. Not on these terms.”
“I figured that out by myself, by context and inference,” he said. “I’m not as intellectually stunted and backward as you seem to think.”
“Don’t be sarcastic,” Nell snapped, dashing away tears. “It’s one thing to wait around for a lover to admit to loving you. It’s entirely another to wait around for a husband to do it.”
Duncan stared at her. “You would have waited a long time,” he said. “I’ve offered you more than I’ve ever dreamed of offering anyone. If it’s not enough, then there’s nothing more to be said.”
Nell straightened up, stiff and dignified. “I understand.”
A phone began to ring somewhere. He recognized the muffled ringtone of the cell he’d given to Nell. It was in her purse, which she’d left on the floor next to the couch. She made no move to get it.
He leaned over, fished it out, and checked the display. “Upstate area code,” he said, handing it to her. “Maybe one of your sisters.”