“You’ve been married three years, and still a virgin!” Margaret Kensington said, her scorn cutting the atmosphere in the high-ceilinged drawing room. “And your excuse is that my son still hasn’t touched you?”

Romy Palmer sat very still on the edge of the sofa, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

She did not lift her face. She had learned, long ago, that silence offended the Kensingtons less than the truth.

Margaret stared at her as though she were an unsightly stain left on polished marble.

“My God,” she said, with a short, humourless laugh. “What exactly have you been doing in this house? Wearing his name, spending his money, playing the devoted wife—yet you cannot even manage the one only thing we expected of you?”

Romy’s fingers tightened further, threatening to crease the pages of the medical report she was holding.

Margaret had already turned toward the hall. At the doorway she paused, casting a last exasperated grimace at Romy.

“Tonight,” she said, each word measured and merciless, “you will do your duty and get this marriage consummated. If my son walks out of that bedroom without touching you again, your things will be outside by breakfast.”

The front door closed behind her with a soft, expensive click.

For a long moment, Romy remained where she was.

Then she looked down at the doctor’s report in her hand. The paper had gone warm from her grip, its neat black letters suddenly blurred and meaningless.

A bitter curve touched her mouth.

How ridiculous, she thought, to have needed proof for something no one in her husband’s family had ever cared to believe.

She crushed the report into a ball, dropped it into the wastebasket, and went upstairs to the bedroom she had shared with Devon Kensington for three years in name only.

It was a large room, grand and forbidding.

Romy sometimes thought there was plenty of room for two beds. They could replace the king-size bed monstering the center of the room, for one each side of the room. 

Not that it would have made much difference. The one they shared was already divided with a precision no wall could improve upon.

Devon slept on the right side, always turned toward the windows, his broad back facing her like a closed door. Romy slept on the left, close enough to feel the shift of the mattress when he moved, close enough to hear his breathing in the dark, yet still further from him than any stranger. 

Tonight, he came home earlier than usual.

He stood before the mirror, loosening his tie with the same calm, practiced ease he brought to boardrooms, charity dinners, and every room in which people expected a Kensington heir to be flawless. At twenty-eight, Devon Kensington had learned how to make power look effortless.

It was only with Romy that his natural ease became stiff and distant. 

“What would you like for dinner?” he asked.

His tone was gentle. It always was. That was the worst part.

Romy stood by the bathroom door in her nightdress, quietly regarding him. Her damp hair fell over one shoulder. Once, years ago, she might have wondered whether he noticed her. She had tried silk. Lace. Bare shoulders. Bare skin.

She had tried shyness, confidence, patience, and the kind of quiet devotion no one ever thanked a woman for.

Eventually, she had learned the truth.

It did not matter what she wore.

It did not matter what she offered.

“Romy?” Devon turned slightly when she did not answer.

She drew a breath and crossed the room.

He sat on the edge of the bed, working one cufflink free. The gesture was so ordinary, so familiar, that for one terrible second she nearly lost her nerve.

“Devon.”

He paused. Looked up at her, an eyebrow raised in query. At least she had his attention now. 

“I want…” She stopped. The words sat in her throat, sharp and humiliating. She could not say them. Not like that. Not after three years of pretending dignity could survive this marriage.

So she said, “Devon, I want us to be… true husband and wife. I mean…” She faltered. He knew what she meant. 

The silence that followed was soft, and endless.

Romy could hear the faint tick of the clock on his bedside table. She could hear her own heart, beating too hard for a woman who was trying very carefully not to beg.

Devon looked at her.

“You are my wife. Isn’t that enough? ” he said at last.

There it was again. That careful kindness. That patient tone one used with someone fragile, someone unreasonable.

Emboldened, Romy looked into his eyes. They were a clear, beautiful grey-blue, untouched by panic, untouched by desire. Untouched by her.

“I have been your wife for three years, Devon,” she dared continue. “In every way except the one that makes it a true marriage.” 

His expression changed, but only slightly.

“Romy—”

“I want a child,” she said, before he could soften the words into something harmless. Her hands closed around the hem of her nightdress. “I want you to touch me.”

The last words came out almost soundless.

But he heard them.

For the first time that night, something deep in him stirred slightly.

Then Devon frowned, and rising from the bed, went over to stand by the window. Gazing into the darkness outside, he didn’t turn back when he spoke.

“What has brought this on? You’re upset, Romy.” 

“I’m not.”

“I can understand that you might have a long day…”

“I said I’m not upset.”

Her voice surprised even her. It was too quick, too thin, stretched tight over something breaking.

He turned back then, and the look on his face nearly undid her. Not anger. Not disgusted. If it had been either of those, perhaps she could have hated him.

But Devon only looked pained.

“Marriage is more than that,” he said quietly.

Romy looked straight into his grey-blue eyes, trying to find an answer in them

“Then tell me what it is.”

But Devon said nothing.

“I wait for you every night. I sit beside you at dinners where no one speaks to me unless they want something from you.I stand beside you at social events where no one speaks to me unless they want something from you. I tend you when you’re ill. I smile when your mother looks through me as if I’m furniture she regrets buying.”

She kept her voice steady, trying to be reasonable. “I have done everything a wife is supposed to do.”

She swallowed.

“So why am I the only part of this marriage you refuse to touch?”

For a moment, Devon looked as though she had struck him.

Then he came toward her.

Romy hated herself for the way her body responded to his proximity. Hated the helpless sense of hope that rose in her.

He reached out and brushed a damp strand of hair away from her cheek. His touch was always gentle, but never intimate.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my fault. Not yours.”

Romy closed her eyes.

Three years. The same words, offered like a bandage over a wound he never intended to heal.

She had once believed him. She had believed there was grief in him, or guilt, or some old ache he could not name. She had told herself to be patient. If she loved him enough, he might eventually melt.

But gratitude was not desire.

Pity was not love.

And no amount of tenderness could warm a bed where one person was always turning away.

His hand began to fall.

Romy caught it.

The movement was sudden enough to surprise them both. Her fingers closed around his wrist, tight and trembling.

Devon looked down at their joined hands, then back at her.

“Romy?”

It was not an accusation, but Rebeca could sense the refusal.

That kindness destroyed her.

“Just tonight,” she whispered, baring her soul.

Her throat burned. Her pride had nowhere left to stand.

“Please, Devon.” She forced herself to look at him, though every second of it stripped something from her. 

“I want to know what it feels like to be wanted by my husband.”