She'd lost him at everything you want and nothing that I want, but he wasn't sure how to tell her that. He would have preferred not to tell her at all, but Emrys was sensing that she was unlikely to leave without some sort of explanation, and he didn't think he could stomach lying to her.

"I don't trust you," he said, though of course he couldn't stop there. He'd trusted her with a secret he didn't share with anyone, even if he hadn't told her intentionally. "I don't trust your judgement when you say we can both be happy with this arrangement. Yesterday you spoke as though you thought I'd given this no consideration." Her jibe about how he would react when Miss Cosgrove wanted to redecorate his parlor stood out as a particularly egregious example of this. "I've thought it through. I thought it through before I ever met you. I know exactly what I want in a wife. Someone who will be amused and distracted by silly little luxuries like weekends at Brighton and shopping trips to Paris. Someone who won't care much if I'm 'working late' several nights a week. Someone who wouldn't think to ask many questions. Someone who might eventually think it quite convenient if we mainly lived in separate residences. If you say you can be happy with that kind of a life —" Emrys huffed and his expression changed, looking dour and almost petulant. "— then you're lying. To me, or to yourself."

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