Marriage Without Love & More Than a Convenient Marriage?

A little chill went through her before she asked, “What happened after you lost her? Where did you go?”

His mouth pressed tight.

Her heart fell. This was one of those times he wouldn’t answer.

He surprised her by saying gruffly, “There was a sailor who was decent to me.”

“A kindly old salt?” she asked, starting to smile.

“The furthest thing from it. My palms would be wet with broken blisters and all he’d say was, ‘There’s no room for crybabies on a ship,’ and send me back to work.”

She gasped in horror, checking her footstep to pause and look at him.

He shook his head at her concern. “It’s true. It wasn’t a cruise liner. If you’re not crew, you’re cargo and cargo has to pay. If he hadn’t pushed me, I wouldn’t be where I am today. He taught me the ropes—that’s not a pun. Everything from casting off to switching out the bilge pump. He taught me how to hang on to my money, not drink or gamble it away. Even how to fight. Solid life skills.”

“Does he know where you are today? What you’ve made of yourself?”

“No.” His stoic expression flinched and his tone went flat. “He died. He was mugged on a dock for twenty American dollars. Stabbed and left to bleed to death. I came back too late to help him.”

“Oh, Gideon.” She wanted to bring his hand to her aching heart. Of course he was reticent and hard-edged with that sort of pain in his background. Questions bubbled in her mind. How old had he been? What had he done next?

She bit back pressing him. Baby steps, she reminded herself, but baby steps toward what? Their marriage was broken because they were broken.

She frowned. The future they’d mapped out with such simplistic determination five years ago had mostly gone according to plan. When it came to goal achievement in a materialistic sense, they were an unstoppable force. A really great team.

But what use was a mansion if no patter of tiny feet filled it? Without her father goading for expansion, she was content to slow the pace and concentrate on fine-tuning what they had.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted from her marriage, only knew she couldn’t be what Gideon seemed to expect her to be.

Where could they go from here?

The sweet scent of orange blossoms coated the air as they wandered in silence between the rows of trees. Gideon lazily reached up to steal a flower from a branch and brought it to his nose. A bemused smile tugged at his lips.

“Your hair smelled like this on our wedding night.”

Adara’s abdomen contracted in a purely sensual kick of anticipation, stunning her with the wash of acute hunger his single statement provoked. She swallowed, trying to hide how such a little thing as him recalling that could affect her so deeply.

“I wore a crown of them,” she said, trying to sound light and unaffected.

“I remember.” He looked at her in a way that swelled the words with meaning, even though she wasn’t sure what the meaning was.

A flood of pleasure and self-consciousness brimmed up in her.

“That almost sounds sentimental, but the night can only be memorable for how awkward I was,” she dismissed, accosted anew by embarrassment at how gauche and inexperienced she’d been.

“Nervous,” he corrected. “As nervous as you are now.” He halted her and stood in front of her to drift the petal of the flower down her cheek, leaving a tickling, perfumed path. “So was I.”

“I’m sure,” she scoffed, lips coming alive under the feathery stroke of the blossom. She licked the sensation away. “What are you doing?”

“Seducing you. It’d be nice if you noticed.”

She might have smiled, but he distracted her by brushing the flower under her chin. She lifted to escape the disturbing tickle and he stole a kiss.

It was a tender press of his mouth over hers, not demanding and possessive as she’d come to expect from him. This was more like those first kisses they’d shared a lifetime ago, during their short engagement. Brief and exploratory. Patient.

Sweet but frustrating. She was too schooled in how delicious it was to give in to passion to go back to chaste premarital nuzzling.

He drew back and looked into her eyes through a hooded gaze. “I remember every single thing about that night. How soft your skin was.” The blossom dropped away as he stroked the back of his bent fingers down her cheek and into the crook of her neck. His gaze went lower and his hand followed. “I remember how I had to learn to be careful with your nipples because they’re so sensitive.”