There was a brief, shocked silence. Then Jason started to laugh.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me! Don’t you dare laugh.” A fury rose inside Charlotte, one that had been years in the making, one so strong there was no holding back. She threw herself at him, arms swinging, feet kicking, fingers clawing, before he had a chance to react.

He caught her by the wrists. “Charlotte…I wasn’t laughing at you.”

She barely heard his words, not that it mattered. She twisted and bucked in his hold. He twisted, too, and with the momentum of his weight they fell together on the bed. He was sprawled over her upper body, his thigh across her legs, holding her down.

Her chest was heaving, her shoulders jerking upward in an effort to escape.

“Charlotte, for heaven’s sake, I wasn’t laughing at you,” he said again.

She gritted her teeth, refusing to answer him.

“Stop struggling, before you destroy any chance of my fathering our future child.”

She went still, although the fight hadn’t completely left her.

“Now let me explain.”

There were too many years of agony inside her, too many insecurities to be soothed away with a few simple words. “No. Just let me go.”

“In a minute. Then if you still want me to release you I will. You owe me this much. All right?”

She twisted her head away from him, still refusing to answer.

“I love you, Charlotte. I realized when we first started seeing each other that you’d been badly hurt by your ex-husband. I didn’t understand the extent of it until now, but in some ways I think not knowing was for the best. It would have intimidated me in the beginning.”

A sob tore through her throat.

“The first time we kissed…I wish I knew how to explain it, but I knew you were different. That moment was different than any I’d ever known before. Kissing you was so good.”

Charlotte didn’t respond, but she knew he was right. Their kisses had been good. Very good.

“It got even better, didn’t it?”

She nodded, although only slightly.

“You’re not frigid, or whatever term the psychologists prefer now. Not even close. What you are, my love, is afraid, and for a very legitimate reason. You’ve been sexually abused.”

“I’m sexually…damaged. Forever.”

“No, not forever. In time you’ll heal. We’ll heal together.” He said it with such conviction, as though they faced only a small problem, when to her it was bigger than both of them. Bigger than even their love.

“But it isn’t you who…can’t make love,” she sobbed. “It’s me. You’re not the one who has to heal…and I don’t know if I can.”

“We’re in this together, Charlotte. Whatever it takes.”

“There isn’t any reason you should—”

“We can’t heal,” he interrupted, “unless we try. We can’t sweep this under the carpet and ignore it. I’m not so stupid as to believe that all the pain and all the memories will go away simply because we make love and it’s as good as our kisses have been.”

“I…don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forget.”

Jason rolled away from her, freeing her arms and legs. He stood and raked his hand through his hair. “The decision is yours, and I’ll abide by whatever you want. I’m not going to force you to be my wife. I’ve made some mistakes in this relationship and just now was one of them. I’m sure I’ll make more. You should know that.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” She sat up and wiped the tears from her burning cheeks, her hands trembling. Jason had moved away from her and was staring out the window.

“Like I said, the decision is yours. If you want me to file for an annulment, then I will. I’ll make the arrangements to get us off this island as quickly as possible. As soon as I can, I’ll take care of all the legalities. In a few days there won’t be anything to bind us together—if that’s what you want.”

“I see.” Her heart filled with mourning.

“But there’s something you should understand, Charlotte. If you decide you want to give this marriage a try, there’ll be no turning back.”

She did understand, and the thought filled her with panic.

“I’m willing to devote myself to you and the marriage, but I’ll need the same kind of commitment from you. In other words, you’re going to have to want to heal. It may mean counseling for you, for us both. We both have to be willing to do whatever it takes.”

“I don’t know if I could…ever tell anyone else about my marriage to Tom.”

“That’s your decision, too. If you want to stay my wife, you have to realize that the time will come when we will make love—but only when you’re ready. And when we do, it’ll be good, Charlotte…I promise you that.”

“How often?” It was probably a stupid question, but one she needed to know. She might be able to bear it if Jason wanted to make love occasionally. She might be able to overcome the terror if he wasn’t too demanding.

“I can’t answer that because I don’t know.”

“More than once a month?”

He turned away from her, but not before she saw his smile. “Yes, Charlotte, more than once a month.”

“I see.”

“It seems to me that you have some serious thinking to do. Perhaps it would be best if I left for a while. When I come back, you can tell me your thoughts. Does that sound fair?”

She waited until he turned to look at her before she nodded.

So this was what it meant to love someone, Jason thought as he left the hotel and headed for the beach. He felt as though a hole had been carved through the center of his life, and nothing—besides Charlotte—was capable of filling it. He wanted to believe she’d realize he wasn’t another Tom. That didn’t seem to be the case, however.

He’d felt a glimmer of hope when he’d first started talking, trying to get through to her, soothe her fears. The anger had drained from her eyes as she’d studied him, seeming to measure his words. He’d seen trust gradually replace that anger.

He hoped she’d be willing to give their marriage a chance. He loved her, but he wasn’t naive or arrogant enough to believe his feelings for her could, on their own, heal the horror of her experience. She was going to need more than his love, more than his gentleness. Being tender and patient with her wasn’t going to wipe out the trauma of having been raped by her own husband. No wonder she was so terrified.

Jason sensed that other things, maybe even worse than those he knew, had happened in her marriage. Things she hadn’t told him yet.

Her marriage had been so ugly, so abusive. He marveled that she’d even considered remarrying. Knowing what he did now, it didn’t surprise him that she’d run away at the eleventh hour. It wouldn’t surprise him if she decided to go through with the annulment, either.

He’d given her the option, laid everything out on the table for her to examine. His love, his commitment, his willingness to do whatever he could to help her overcome her fears. But in light of what he’d learned, it seemed so little….

A couple of hours later, Jason returned to the hotel to confront Charlotte again. Two hours didn’t seem like much time to come to such a monumental decision, but he wanted to be with her.

Perhaps it would be best if he waited for her to come to him, but he quickly rejected that idea as impractical. If he was going to waste precious time debating with himself, he should do it over something important, like how was he going to live without Charlotte. How was he going to let her go, the only woman he’d ever truly loved? Those were the questions he should be asking himself.

Charlotte sat in the darkened room, the drapes pulled against the brightness of the sun, waiting for Jason. Having carefully considered her husband’s words, she knew with a clarity that defied explanation what she was meant to do. She should remain his wife. Should share his bed. Should share his life.

The heavy ache in her chest intensified. Fresh tears moistened her eyes. Jason had offered her his love, his devotion, and his wholehearted commitment. He’d done so with a courage that left her humbled. He was willing to help her heal, but Charlotte didn’t know if it would be enough.

There was no guarantee the pain would ever end. No guarantee she’d ever feel whole again. Healing demanded courage. It meant reaching back into the past, into the pain, and reliving the nightmare. Wasn’t enduring it once enough? Healing meant risking whatever serenity she’d found in the years since her divorce. Healing meant trusting a man again, trusting him enough to freely share her body.

Charlotte closed her eyes, wanting to blot everything out. She was such a coward. A world-class wimp. She knew what she should do, but it was so frightening. She wanted to run away, bury her feelings. Hide, the way she’d been doing for years. There was something so comfortable in denial.

There had to be more to life than this choking anger. More than this grief and fear.

With Jason’s love there was more.

There was hope.

Charlotte must have fallen asleep. When she stirred she saw that the drapes were open and Jason was sitting on the lanai, sipping a glass of orange juice.

“Hello,” he said with a smile.

“Hi.” She felt a little shy as she slipped out of bed and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Afternoon. I imagine you’re starved.”

Now that he mentioned it, she realized she was hungry. The last food she’d eaten had been at their wedding dinner, and that had been the day before.

“I took the liberty of ordering you lunch.”

She smiled and joined him on the lanai. “I slept for so long.”

“You needed the rest.” He looked so familiar and handsome, sitting there in the sunlight with his baseball cap shading his eyes. His skin was bronzed, and his eyes, as blue as the Hawaiian sky, roamed over her with undisguised love and tenderness. “Listen, Charlotte, I was wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“I shouldn’t have given you an ultimatum. You’re going to need more than a few hours to decide what you want. I made the same mistake earlier by rushing you into a marriage you didn’t want and…”

“But I did want this marriage, very badly.”

“Did,” he repeated in a husky, regretful voice.

“Do,” she corrected firmly.

For several minutes, he said nothing. “Even now, knowing what it’ll mean?”

“Even now,” she said, holding out her hand to him.

Jason held it fast. “I love you, Charlotte Manning.”

“I know.” Her voice broke, and she struggled not to break down and weep. Someday she’d tell him how close she’d come to walking away from the brightest promise of her life. She’d tell him how she’d finally decided that loving Jason, being his wife, sharing his life wasn’t just something she should do, but something she wanted to do. Ached to do, with all her heart. Someday she’d tell him all of this.