Bound As His Business-Deal Bride

Whatever the truth in Gage’s words, the realisation still hurt. ‘It’s why he was so happy when he found out about you. It meant the dream he assumed was your parents’ lives wasn’t the fairy-tale he’d imagined.’

Gage walked forward, sat on the couch but as far away from her as he could, like he was giving her space to glue herself back together. It didn’t matter. Another country was too close where he was concerned.

‘Mom and Dad went through a really bad patch in their marriage. They almost broke up. Of the many reasons they objected to us, our being so young was one of the biggest. They wanted me to have lived my life, be older. Be sure.’

She picked at a loose thread on the knee of her old jeans, anything to resist the urge to close the space, crawl into his arms and never leave. ‘I was sure then. The arrogance and innocence of my young self. I thought love would conquer everything. But we would have burned out.’

He shook his head. ‘No. We wouldn’t. I was sure back then too, and I’m even surer now.’

Her heart pounded a wild and desperate rhythm, crushing the breath right out of her. Hope was something she could not allow to spark, not now. Because that tiny pilot light of hope in the face of all the futility surrounding them had the power to burn her to ashes.

She was terrified of who might rise out of them.

‘Gage, stop.’

He ran his hands through his hair again, some golden strands falling over his brow. It almost undid her, seeing this self-contained man so messy and rumpled, all because of her.

‘Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll walk out the door right now. But I never want you to live under the assumption I didn’t love you. I did. I do. I have for years.’ Gage turned his body to face her, his gaze steady and sure. ‘I’ll never stop.’

And it didn’t matter what seemed sensible and rational and right. That hope burst to life in a bright, hot conflagration and all she could do was let herself burn.

Gage sat on the edge of the couch, that precarious position a metaphor for his life right now. All that he desired was in this room. There was no plan B for him. It was a case of either living his best life or merely existing. Eve looked away from him, at all the vases that decorated every surface. This gesture, grand as it appeared, wasn’t enough. In all reality, probably nothing would be enough to earn her forgiveness for how he’d behaved.

She looked so beautiful and fragile sitting here, like the blooms that filled the room. One wrong breath, a careless touch and the petals would bruise and fall. It was all he could do not to reach out. To brush away the smudge of dust on her cheek. To kiss away the look of sorrow in her eyes, for which he was entirely responsible.

She shook her head. The crack in his heart widened a little more.

‘But...you’ve got no room in your life for me. You want to destroy my family. Life’s about living. Building things, not tearing them down.’

The look on her face almost broke him; the corners of her mouth trembling in a futile fight not to turn down. Her eyes were a little red, gleaming with tears he knew she refused to shed. He didn’t deserve them anyhow. Didn’t deserve her, but he couldn’t leave without trying. In the end, all he wanted her to know was that she was loved.

‘I was wrong. So wrong in so many ways. Pursuing Knight Enterprises like I did. Forcing you into this situation. They were the actions of a cruel man. You were right to accuse me of becoming like your father. Loving someone means letting them go and I should have done that. Instead, I treated love like a possession. But it’s not. It’s something bestowed not something you take and hoard. I love you, Eve, but I will walk away if that’s what you need to be happy.’

Gage inched closer, close enough so their knees brushed. Even that hint of a touch sent shockwaves right through him. Eve didn’t turn away, she didn’t move at all. This close he could see the tired, dark circles under her eyes that she’d tried to conceal. They reflected his own. Both of them looked wretched.

She stared at where their knees barely touched, before looking at him. Her brows rose a fraction, eyes wide and blue, the question in them clear.

‘Can you promise me no revenge?’

In the end that was the easy part. Getting her to trust him would be harder and he’d work at it for ever if he had to. Gage nodded.

‘All I want is you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, I just didn’t realise it.’ He took her hands in his own. They were cool and the barest of tremors shivered through them. He hoped he could warm her, now and for ever. ‘I’m so damned tired of looking for the worst in everything. I want to see the best, and you were always the best thing that had happened in my life. I should have trusted you and our love. If I’d come after you back then, rather than believing the lies, maybe things would have been different.’

She dropped her head, looked at their joined hands.

‘You believed me when I was unspeakably cruel. I can hardly forgive myself for what I said to you because my father demanded it.’

‘Your words were cruel, but I should have known they were a lie. I should have trusted you more.’

Eve squeezed his fingers, and Gage squeezed back, holding on tight.

‘I should have fought for us instead of giving up,’ she said.

‘I wasn’t worthy of you then. And I’m sure as hell not worthy of you now.’

‘You were always worthy.’ The threatened tears in Eve’s eyes now brimmed and overflowed, tracking down her cheeks. ‘If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have tried to protect you.’

He couldn’t stand the distance anymore. He reached out to her and hauled her onto his lap. She didn’t resist, nestling into him as he wrapped her tightly in his embrace. Closing his eyes and relishing the feel of her again, all soft and pliant. At that moment something about his upside-down world righted itself again.