Bound As His Business-Deal Bride

‘I think I probably have enough.’

‘You can never have too many flowers.’ He looked around the room, down at the floor, then his gaze rested on the packing boxes. ‘You’re moving. To Grasse.’

It wasn’t a question. A jolt of surprise spiked through her. ‘Is that an educated guess?’

Gage ran his hand through his hair. ‘A large parcel of Caron shares has been sold. Your loan’s been repaid. The farm is off the rental market and you’ve resigned as CEO. It’s no guess.’

She put the flowers on a chair. They could go into water later, once she’d dealt with this and moved on, but tell that to her body, which vibrated at the impossible thrill of having him near, in her space. She cocked her head. ‘You been keeping an eye on me?’

‘Always.’ Gage’s voice ground out, wounded and raw. His throat convulsed in a swallow. ‘I don’t know how to look away.’

And there was the anguish of them, described in one sentence. Neither of them knew how to stop this. For days after she’d come here she’d barely been able to haul her sorry self out of bed each morning. It had been a struggle to simply put one foot in front of the other and not to scour the internet for any news about him. She’d wondered if she’d ever fully get over him and had resigned herself to that answer being ‘No’. He would always be part of her. Even now, she craved to reach out, to touch him. To comfort and be comforted. To trace her hands over his strong arms. Arms where she’d once felt protected. Loved... And yet going back felt like an end, not a beginning.

Finally, someone had to say enough.

‘Gage, what are you doing here?’

‘I’ve come to talk. I’ve been so focussed on...what’s gone wrong in my life.’

She planted her hands on her hips. ‘You can say the word. It’s revenge.’ She’d been in denial for so long she refused to accept the same of him.

Gage nodded. ‘You’re right. I’ve been so focussed on revenge I lost sight of everything that might have been good.’ He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and for a moment looked like a chastened schoolboy. ‘I’ve spoken to my parents.’

That conversation must have been awful. Her heart, which she was struggling to harden, softened a little further. ‘I’m sorry to have been the one to tell you, but you needed to know. If only—’

‘No.’ Gage shook his head. ‘There’s no need to be sorry. In the end you were the only one with the courage to say anything. I’m glad it was you, and not Hugo.’

Something inside her unknotted a fraction because that final and terrible decision to say anything at all had tortured her, even though she’d known she’d had no choice. ‘How did the conversation with your parents go?’

He shrugged. ‘As well as can be expected when finding out the man you’ve loved as a father all your life, isn’t your father. But I learned some things.’

He took a deep

breath, looked at her with his summer-blue eyes. Her heart broke all over again every time she was close to him. No more. While it was a difficult habit to overcome, she was the priority now. She just had to stay strong.

‘Did anyone ever tell you why our families hate each other?’ he asked.

‘“Carons are liars and thieves.”’ She repeated the words her family had tried to etch in her consciousness from birth.

Gage cocked his head. ‘“Chevaliers are charlatans and cheats.”’

‘Now we’ve established that, does any other reason matter?’

It didn’t really. People had choices. You could move forward and get on with your life or you could wallow. Forward was the only direction for her now.

Yet with Gage here again in her home, surrounded by flowers, the idea of moving forward on her own didn’t seem like a triumph. It seemed like a recipe for loneliness, because even when they weren’t together, he’d always been her destination. She swallowed back the burn in her throat, the stinging in her nose.

‘It matters. Because it’s what led us here. It matters because we can’t move on unless we know how it began in the first place.’ Gage took a step forward, flexing his fingers as if he wanted to touch her. She took a step back and steeled herself, when all she craved to do was tumble into his arms and forget warring families. His shoulders slumped for the briefest of moments then he straightened, like a warrior readying himself for battle, and began pacing.

‘It started with a business deal between friends, and bringing the telegraph to Mississippi. Your family claimed mine had a side investment in the company supplying utility poles that wasn’t disclosed to Chevalier. Mine say yours inflated quotes to skim the extra and make an outrageous profit at Caron’s expense. The hatred grew from there. It waxed and waned over the years depending on which family was doing better. Those things aren’t really a surprise.’ He stopped tracking across the parquet floor, turned to her. ‘Your dad being engaged to my mom is.’

‘What?’ Her legs almost folded under her. Luckily there was a couch close. She sat down hard, her hand to her chest as if that would somehow settle her pounding heart. ‘That’s...that’s impossible.’

Gage remained standing. ‘My mom said their parents knew each other, were old friends. An engagement between Mom and Hugo was expected. Then she met my dad. He’d come home from college for the holidays and it was love at first sight. They married young and your dad never forgave her. It caused a scandal at the time, given the rivalry between our families. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if Gus secretly liked stealing Mom away from a Chevalier. But things only went nuclear again after Mom had me.’

Eve wrapped her arms around her waist. Gage’s voice was distant and remote through the buzzing in her ears. She could put a few things together and the truth of them plunged like a knife and twisted. ‘He always wanted a boy. He was jealous of what your mom and dad had. Two girls were never enough for him.’

‘He was a fool. You are enough, cher.’ His voice was soft and gentle. ‘You’re more than enough.’