Dayan smiled without humor. “We change many things about ourselves, but we have always kept the names we were given at birth.”
Mysterious secrets were locked behind his extraordinary eyes. His eyes looked old, as if he had seen far too many things. There was a quiet strength in the sculpted features of his face. At times he could look quite young, and at others, older and more worn. His body could be so still, not even revealing he was breathing, yet when he chose to move, he was so fast that if she blinked she missed the actual movement. Dayan. He filled her mind as no one had ever done. He gave her dreams she dared not have.
Corinne touched his face with gentle fingers, sorrow for him welling up so that it overwhelmed her. She had thought to warn him, to allow him to make his own decision regarding their relationship, but he was breaking her heart. “Don’t do this, Dayan. Don’t build your dreams around me. I’m so afraid for you. You deserve to be happy. I want you happy. Don’t be like Lisa. She wants a miracle.” The pad of her index finger outlined his perfect lips. “I don’t want to cause you pain. I really don’t.”
“I believe in miracles, Corinne. I found you. I have traveled the world for more years than you can possibly conceive, and never once did I hope for such a thing. Yet you are real. You walked right through the door of that bar. You came to me when I was certain my time was running out. I know there are miracles. Each one of our males who finds his lifemate knows there are such things as miracles. We have had this discussion before, but you refuse to listen. You are not going to die. I want you to believe that, Corinne. Start believing that.”
Corinne sighed softly and looked away from the hungry intensity of his eyes. He could convince anyone with that compelling look. She wanted to be convinced, to think that she might have a chance at a future with her child and a man she felt passionate about. The thought came unbidden, and at once she slammed the door on it. She didn’t really know Dayan at all. Would she still be feeling the same way in a month? Two months? Would Dayan even want her around after a month or two? She knew absolutely nothing about him except that he was a musician who drifted from town to town with his band.
‘A brilliant musician. A legend of a musician.’ Dayan corrected her thoughts, his black eyebrow slanting up as she tried to convince herself she didn’t want him. “Get it right, Corinne. You know more of me than that. You know I do not chase women, that I am protective. You must know I am honest and trustworthy.”
“The ultimate Boy Scout, who eavesdrops on other people’s thoughts,” she reprimanded even as she wondered why it didn’t embarrass her that he knew what she was thinking. She arced one eyebrow at him in a small taunt. “Pregnant women often think sexual thoughts, so don’t flatter yourself.”
“I am only interested in the sexual thoughts of one pregnant woman. It is only natural that you would be sexually attracted to me, Corinne. If you were not, it would be a difficult merging for us. But you are my true lifemate, and I intend to claim you as my own for all time. I think sex should hold a place in our relationship.” He grinned boyishly at her. “A very important place. That is how it is supposed to be.”
She found herself reluctantly smiling. “You sound so certain, so matter-of-fact, as if none of the obstacles matter at all.”
“Of course they do not matter. We must be together, we are meant to be. You feel it too, Corinne, I know you do. We do not have a choice. If you accept that we must be together, than we will find a way for it to be so.”
She looked away from the intensity in his glittering eyes. “I think you really must be a poet, Dayan. You believe in romance. Real life does not necessarily mirror poetry. All of us die, some just go a little sooner than others. My body is wearing out faster than it should. I was born that way, and I’ve always known it would happen. According to the doctors, I shouldn’t have lived beyond my fourteenth birthday. I’m luckier than others who were born like me. That is reality.” He was giving her a headache by refusing to accept the seriousness of her illness.