He smothered a sigh. Okay, so they’d crossed the platonic bridge and burned it in a blaze of glory behind them. But he hadn’t lost complete control over this situation. They could carry on with their plan of living separate lives without emotional entanglements. Sex did blur the line a little, but it didn’t obliterate it.
He and Reagan had set those boundaries for very good reasons.
r /> And neither of them could afford to forget those reasons.
A kernel of unease wiggled into his chest. She’d already made him forget his priorities—saving Wingate Enterprises. He couldn’t allow this kind of slip to become a habit.
Beside him, Reagan fidgeted. And not for the first or fifth time. Glancing down, he noticed her clenched fists on her lap. Before he could question the wisdom of it, he covered her hands with one of his and squeezed.
“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured.
She shook her head, a faint, wry smile tipping the corner of her mouth. “I ran off to Vegas with a man my parents disapprove of. I don’t know which will send my mother into a coronary faster—the elopement or Vegas. And my father...” She shook her head, releasing a humorless chuckle. “I don’t even want to imagine his reaction right now. I started all of this to take my inheritance and keep my family. But it might turn out that I lose both.”
“You’re borrowing trouble, Ray,” Ezekiel said softly. “Your father might be stern and overbearing, but he loves you. He’ll stand by you.”
She huffed out a breath. “You don’t know Douglas Sinclair. Not like I do. If there’s one thing experience has taught me it’s that he doesn’t handle disappointment well. And he never, ever forgets.”
He jerked his gaze from the road to throw her a sharp look. Something in her voice—bitterness, sorrow, pain... It wasn’t the first time he’d detected that particular note, just as he’d noted her habitual stroking of that scar just below her neck.
Secrets. And if he was staring into her eyes, he would see the shadows of them there.
Moments later, her parents’ home loomed into view and he steered the car up the driveway, pulling to a stop in front of the mansion.
“Reagan.” He waited until she switched her gaze from the side window to him. “Whatever you face in there, I will be right beside you. I won’t leave you.”
Her lips twisted into a smile that in no way reached her eyes. They remained dark. Sad. The urge to demand she pour out her pain onto him, to insist she let him in swelled within him, shoving against his chest and throat. But before he could speak, she nodded and reached for the door handle.
“We should go in,” she murmured, pushing the door open and stepping out.
Silent, he met her in front of the car and took hold of her hand. The warning to not muddy the boundaries rebounded against his skull as he raised her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across the back of it. She glanced at him, and a glint of desire flickered in her eyes. Good. Anything to chase away the shadows.
Just as they cleared the top step, the front door opened, and Douglas Sinclair stood in the entrance. He stared at them, his scrutiny briefly dropping to their clasped hands before shifting back to his daughter.
He didn’t greet them but moved backward and held the door open wider. Yet, nothing about his grim expression was welcoming. More likely he didn’t want the neighbors to have a free show.
Settling a hand on Reagan’s lower back, Ezekiel walked inside, lending her his strength. He valued family loyalty and acceptance. Understood the drive to give one and crave the other. Yet he hated how even while Reagan strode ahead, shoulders soldier-straight, head tilted at a proud angle, she did so with a fine tremor that echoed through her and into his palm.
“Reagan.” Henrietta rose from the couch as soon as they entered the small salon. She crossed the room and cupped her daughter’s shoulders, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Where have you been? We’ve been calling you for days now. Honey, we were all so worried.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Reagan said, covering one of her mother’s hands and patting it. “I had my phone turned off. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Henrietta studied her daughter for a long moment before shifting her scrutiny to Ezekiel. “Ezekiel,” she greeted with a nod. “It’s good to see you again.”
“You, too, Henrietta,” he replied, slipping his hand up Reagan’s spine to cup the nape of her neck.
“Mom, Dad, I have news,” Reagan announced. “Zeke and I—” She broke off, and he squeezed the back of her neck, silently reassuring her. “Zeke and I are married. We eloped to Las Vegas. I’m sorry that you’re finding out after the fact, but we—”
“I asked her to come away with me, and she did,” he interjected, but she shook her head, giving him a small but sad smile.
“No, he didn’t. I asked him, and I know you’re probably disappointed in my decision to elope, but it was my decision.” She squared her shoulders. “He is my decision.”
Surprise and no small amount of hurt flashed across her mother’s face, but the older woman quickly composed her features. She shifted backward until she stood next to Douglas, who hadn’t spoken. But his stern, forbidding frown might as well as have been a lecture.
Every protective instinct buried inside Ezekiel clawed its way to the surface, and he faced the other man, moving closer to Reagan. Letting it be known that she was his. And dammit, whether that claim had an expiration date or not, he would protect what was his.
“You deliberately went against my wishes, and now you show up here for, what?” Douglas demanded, his voice quiet thunder. “For our blessing? Our forgiveness? Acceptance? Well, you have none of them.”
“No, not your blessing,” Ezekiel said evenly, but he didn’t bother hiding the steel or the warning in it. “And she nor I require forgiveness for a choice we made together as two consenting adults. Would your acceptance of our marriage be important to your daughter? Yes. But it’s not necessary.”