Bound As His Business-Deal Bride

She bit her lip hard to try and quell the pain with something physical but the sharp bite did nothing to ease the hurt that had never quite healed, like a constant bruise. A lifetime was still too soon. But their child deserved to be finally known and acknowledged by someone other than her. And if Gage knew, maybe he’d stop asking questions that would lead to the most important secret of all she kept from him. A secret that was becoming harder to keep as time slid by.

‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant, not at first.’ The stress, the heartbreak. Not eating, not sleeping. They’d all taken a toll and she hadn’t put together what it meant when she’d missed her period. ‘And when I did... You can’t imagine.’

Being in France made it easier but she’d been terrified that someone would find out. Her father would have lost his mind if he’d known, and she’d already hurt Gage too much. In the beginning it had been what had driven her to succeed, to study and put everything behind her because she’d needed to keep secret the child she carried. At least for a while till she could plan, because after what she’d said to Gage it would have killed her if he’d questioned who the father was or, even worse, denied their baby.

‘Where the hell is he?’

She couldn’t say the words. Instead Eve gently sifted through the detritus of her life lying scattered on the floor. She found the document she was looking for and gave it to him. Whilst he might not be able to understand all that was written on the page, he’d recognize what it meant. Another official paper that had marked the end of all her dreams.

‘I finally saw a doctor and it was going okay. Then at twenty-three weeks, it didn’t.’ She couldn’t express the hope that had died then. It had felt like she had too, and a new Eve Chevalier had been carved from the winter of all that grief. Colder. Harder. The softness pared out of her. ‘He was born so small. They tried to save him and he fought so hard, but...’ She shook her head. In the days after that she’d become a zombie. The emotions too big to suffer alone and yet there was no alternative. Trying to hide what had happened because she’d been determined no one would ever find out.

‘You should have said. I would have...’ The look of anguish in his eyes as their worlds crumbled before them, all the things she’d hidden stitched tightly inside. Gage had that way of unpicking them one by one. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Were you ever going to?’

‘I was terrified.’ At least that was a small part of why she’d done what she’d done. ‘Scared of what my father would do.’ If he’d known, he would have told Gage the truth about his parentage. She remembered that time of fear. Carrying Gage’s child. Wanting to protect him, wanting to sort out the risks for them all in her heart before she announced to the world she was pregnant and the father was Gage.

‘That man.’ Gage surged from his knees towards her, a fire igniting in his eyes. ‘Did Hugo ever hurt you because of me?’

His rage burned like molten metal, thick and scorching. Not at her, but for her. She shook her head.

‘No. But I thought if I told him about the baby, he might have done something.’

‘There is nothing he could have done to you because I would have come for you.’

‘You were another country away. He had all the power. And by the time I thought I could say something it was all over, so I kept it to myself because you didn’t need to suffer this pain.’

Yet as much as the ache now always lived inside her, it felt good to share. To finally acknowledge with another person that their little boy had lived, if only for a short time.

‘I’m suffering it now,’ Gage said, his voice as cracked and broken as her heart. He flicked through more of the material till he found an old, faded photograph of her, holding their little boy all swaddled and hidden. The pain, raw on her face. Her midwife had said it would help, one day, to have this photo. That at some time in the future she’d want these memories.

‘You’ve carried this case around since then,’ he said.

‘I carry it everywhere. It’s always with me.’

Gage hunched over the papers as if curling into himself. The photograph dropped from his fingers and fell to the floor. He buried his head in his hands as his shoulders shuddered. He uttered no sound, but she knew his pain. She’d carried it around with her for too long. Six birthdays, six Mother’s Days. Every milestone she should have been celebrating with their child, lost to her.

She draped herself over Gage’s trembling body. Wrapped her arms around his shoulders and let the years of unshed tears fall. Finally, there was someone who knew. Another person who could mark the date as it passed. And as they clung on to each other a selfish, wicked thought grabbed hard at her like a kudzu vine and wouldn’t let go. What if she could have Gage after all these years? But wanting was a dangerous thing. She still had secrets to keep, though holding them back now felt like trying to stop sand running through an hourglass.

It just ran through her fingers instead.

CHAPTER TEN

THIS PLACE HELD too many memories of his failures and regrets, and those regrets almost crushed Gage now. The pain in his chest wouldn’t go away, a tearing, cutting kind of agony. He wondered if it ever would. All the things he and Eve had missed together threatened to slice him to pieces. The child lost to them both. He didn’t know how Eve had dealt with it on her own, away from any support. How it didn’t crush her now.

What if he’d ignored her cruel words seven years ago, had followed her across the world and fought for the woman he loved rather than giving up and wallowing in self-indulgence over her rejection? They could have been a family or, even if things had still turned out badly with their baby, they would have had each other to cling to. Instead, Eve had suffered in a foreign country. Alone.

Her weight lifted from his back, where she’d held onto him and poured out her grief along with his. He couldn’t understand how she could forgive what he never would—the end of everything they’d hoped for. He took a deep breath against the sadness that threatened to overwhelm him. He’d never forget what had been done by Eve’s family. If he had to maintain the rage for both of them, then so be it. It was bright and hot enough to consume the grief of a thousand people and still have room to devour more.

He straightened up to look at Eve, her beautiful face marred by tears, blotchy and red. He gritted his teeth. ‘Hugo will pay. For it all. If it’s the last thing I do with my last breath, he’ll know the meaning of suffering.

A lifetime of it isn’t enough for what he’s done. Where is he now? Because, God help him, a reckoning is coming.’

Her eyes widened and she paled to the colour of parchment. The ruins of her mascara stood out as dark, wet tracks under her swollen eyes. She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘No?’ Gage stood and began to pace. She was still defending him, after all that man had done?

‘If you go to see him, what will you do?’ Her voice trembled and choked as she stayed on her knees, as if begging him to stop what he never would. Ever. ‘What will it achieve?’

He wheeled round. How could she not see? Her family, her father had destroyed their lives. Tainted the last seven years with his special brand of poison.