More Than a Convenient Marriage?

“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—”

“Oh my God,” Adara cried, shaking now as her mind raced through all that this meant. He must have called his bookie and put everything he owned on a long shot when she turned up in his office asking to marry him. What a fantastic idiot she was! “You never loved me. You didn’t even want me.”

“Adara.” His turn to take a step toward her and it was her turn to back away.

Whatever it took, I had to amass some wealth...

She remembered exactly how shocked he’d looked when she’d suggested marriage, how quick he’d been to seize the chance. How accommodating and willing to go with the flow of everything she asked, from waiting until the wedding night to keeping separate bedrooms.

She covered her mouth to hold back a scream. And last night she’d had to beg him to touch her. She’d had to plead because he’d been avoiding lovemaking—

Humiliation stung all the way to her soul.

“You’ve been laughing at me all this time, haven’t you?” she accused as emotion welled in her. Hot, fierce emotion that made her tremble uncontrollably. “No wonder you fought so hard to stay married. Where would all of this go if we divorced?” She flung out an arm to encompass the penthouse and work space and high living they enjoyed. “Who would half of it go to? Thank God I was pregnant, huh, Gid—” She choked, aware she didn’t even know his real name. “Whoever the hell you are.”

Gideon’s world was dissolving around him, but it had nothing to do with penthouses in the top of a tower. “Calm down,” he said, grasping desperately at control, when he wanted to crush her to him and show her how wrong she was. “You’re going to put yourself into labor. We can get through this, Adara. Look how far we’ve come since Greece.”

It was a weakly thrown life ring, one that failed to reach her.

“How far?” she cried, rising to a new level of hysteria. “I thought we were learning to be honest. You might have mentioned this little secret of yours.”

“I’m telling you now,” he insisted.

“Because my brother extorted it out of you! If he hadn’t, I’d still be in the dark, wouldn’t I?”

He grappled for a reasonable tone, worried about the way her face was reddening. Her blood pressure wasn’t a huge issue, but they were monitoring it. She’d complained of breathlessness a few times and her chest was heaving with agitation.

“We were happy,” he defended.

“The mark is always happy when she’s well and truly duped,” she cried. “How could you do that to me? To anyone? What kind of man are you?” She rushed him, looking as if she intended to pulverize him.

He caught her arms and held her off. He didn’t care about his own safety. She could pummel him into the dirt if it made her feel better, but she and the baby were everything. If she didn’t get hold of herself, she was going to hurt one or the other or both.

She struggled against his hold, but he easily used his superior strength to back her into the sofa, where he firmly plunked her into it, saying sternly, “Calm down.”

“I have a criminal liar invading my home! I’m entitled to—oh, you bastard! I hate you.” She tried to rise and strike at him. “How could you do this? How?”

He forced her back into the softness of the cushions. “You’re giving me no choice but to walk out of here,” he warned. “I’d rather stay and talk this out.”

“And talk me round, you mean.” She slapped at his touch. “Get out of here then, you scumbag.”

The names didn’t matter. The betrayal and loathing behind the words sliced him to the bone. He couldn’t bear to leave her hating him like this, but even as he stood there hesitating, she was trying to rock herself out of the cushions and swipe at him at the same time, breasts heaving with exertion.

For her own safety, he couldn’t stay. Every step to the door flayed a layer of skin from his body, but he moved away from her, waiting for a pause in her tirade of filthy names to say, “It was never my ability to love that was in question, Adara.”

“You should have said it last night when I asked. I might have fallen for it then, but not now, you phony. Get out. And don’t ever expect to see this child.”

That was meant as a knife to the heart and it landed right on target, stealing his breath and almost taking him back into the fight, but as he glanced back, he could see how pale and fraught she was, obviously going into a kind of shock. He grabbed his cell phone on the way to the elevator and placed a call to Nic as the doors closed him out of his home.

“Get over here and make sure she doesn’t lose our baby over this.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ADARA HAD A very high tolerance for emotional pain, but this went beyond anything she’d ever imagined. Even the news that her mother unexpectedly succumbed to her cancer didn’t touch it. Maybe because she’d prepared herself for that loss, she was able to get through it without falling apart, but in truth, she was pretty sure her heart was too broken to feel it.

At least dealing with the funeral and out-of-town family gave her something to concentrate on besides the betrayal she’d suffered. Moving like a robot, she went through the motions of making arrangements while all three of her brothers stood as an honor guard around her.

Nic hadn’t been sure of his reception, but she didn’t blame him for bringing Gideon’s lies to her attention. Nic understood how unacceptable and wrong hiding the truth was. He’d been right to force it into the light.

As for the man she had thought of as her husband, she saw him once. He came to the service, not making any effort to approach her, but she felt his eyes on her the whole time.

After the first glimpse, she couldn’t bear to look at him. All she could think about was how easy she’d been for him in every way, screwing up her courage to propose. Giving in to hormones and his deft proficiency with the female body. Feeling so proud to have a man at all, especially one who made women envy her. He’d played on all her biggest weaknesses, right up to his supposed shared pain over the miscarriages.