“It’s not you that’s done anything. You’re perfect. And I wouldn’t do this if your brother hadn’t threatened to do it for me,” he said through gritted teeth, as if he was digging a bullet from his own flesh. “I would never hurt you if I had a choice. You know that, right?”
“Hurt me how? Which brother? What do you mean?”
“Nic. He’s threatened to expose me to you, so I have no choice but to tell you myself.”
His despair was so tangible, her hand unconsciously curled into the lapels of the robe, drawing it tightly over the place in her throat that suddenly felt sliced open and cold. She instinctively knew she didn’t want to hear what he had to say, but forced herself to ask in a barely-there voice, “Tell me what?”
He solidified into a marble statue, inscrutable and still, his lips barely moving as he said, “That I’m not Gideon Vozaras.”
After a long second, she reminded herself to blink, but she was still unable to comprehend. Her mind said, Of course you are. He wasn’t making sense.
“I don’t... What do you mean? Who is then?”
“No one. It’s a made-up name.”
“No, it’s not.” The refusal was automatic. How could his name be made up? He had a driver’s license and a passport. Deeds to boats and properties. His name was on their marriage certificate. You couldn’t falsify things like that. Could you?
She stared at him, ears ringing with the need to hear something from those firmly clamped lips, something that would contradict what he’d already said.
He only held her gaze with a deeply regretful look. His brow was furrowed and anguished.
No. She shook her head. This was just something he was saying to get out of feeling pressured to love her because...
Her mind couldn’t conjure any sensible reason to go to this length of a tale to escape an emotional obligation. Rather, her thoughts leaped more quickly to the opposite: that it would make more sense to pretend to love in order to perpetuate a ruse. The nightly news was full of fraudsters who pretended to love someone so they could marry a fortune.
Her throat closed up and she took a step backward, recoiling from the direction her thoughts were taking. It wasn’t possible. She was being paranoid.
But she couldn’t escape the way tiny actions—especially those taken since she’d asked for a divorce—began to glow with significance. They landed on her with a weightless burn, clinging like fly ash.
I fired Lexi.
I had self-worth because you gave it to me. People respected me.
His sudden turn toward physical attentiveness and nonstop seduction. No baby wasn’t a deal breaker, he’d said.
But adoption wasn’t worth talking about because that would require a thorough background check.
Her heart shriveled and began to hurt. She brought a protective hand to her belly. He must have thought he’d won the lottery when she had turned up pregnant and their marriage was seemingly cemented forever.
I wouldn’t do this if your brother hadn’t threatened to do it for me.
He would have let her just keep on believing he was Gideon Vozaras.
“Who are you?” she asked in a thin voice, thinking, This is a dream. A bad one. “Where did Gideon Vozaras come from?”
He scowled. “I took Kristor’s surname so I could pose as his son and collect what savings he had. My first name came off the cover of a Bible in a hotel room.” He jerked a shoulder, face twisting
with dismay. “Sacrilegious, I know.”
A fine tremor began to work through her and she realized she was cold. Too bad. There was no cuddling up to her husband for a warm hug. This man was a stranger.
The truth of that struck to her core.
“We’re not married,” she breathed. Somehow it was worse than all the rest. She was a good girl. Always had been. She’d saved herself for marriage. They’d had a wedding. Her father had finally approved of something she’d done. There were photos of them taking vows. All those witnesses had seen...a joke. A lie.
It was all a huge, huge lie.
Gideon—the stranger—flattened his mouth into a grim line. “In every way that matters, I am—”