More Than a Convenient Marriage?

Here her heart stalled, torn apart by the idea he’d been faking his grief. It was too unfair, too cruel. Was even a shred of what he’d told her about his childhood true?

That thought weakened her, making her susceptible to excusing his behavior, so she cut herself off from considering it. She’d leaned on Theo’s wide chest and focused on the inappropriate dress worn by Demitri’s date. Leave it to her youngest brother to bring an escort to his mother’s funeral.

Her brothers coped in very different ways, but they stayed close, protective in their way, getting her through those first few weeks of loss so she didn’t have to dwell on the fact her marriage had been an unmitigated fraud.

But solitude arrived when they went back to work and Nic went home with his wife and baby.

Adara had to say one thing about her fake of a husband. He’d provoked a new sense of responsibility in both her younger brothers. Demitri was still a wild card, but he hadn’t missed a single appointment in his calendar since he’d been informed of her pregnancy, and while she wasn’t always comfortable with his newfangled marketing campaigns, they seemed to be working.

As for Theo, well, the middle child was always a dark horse, keeping things inside. Epitomizing the strong silent type, he didn’t socialize or like people much at all. That’s why she was so surprised when he dropped by the penthouse on his way home from the airport, took off his jacket and asked if he could make himself coffee.

“I can make it,” she offered.

“Stay off your feet.”

She made a face at his back, tired of a lifetime of being bossed by men, but also tired in general. Elevating her ankles again as she’d been instructed, she went back to studying a spreadsheet on her laptop.

“Why are you working?” he asked when he came back to pace her living room restlessly, steaming cup in his hand.

“I’m not checking up on you, if that’s what you think.”

“Go ahead. You won’t find any mistakes. I don’t make them.”

She lifted her brows at his arrogance, but he only held her gaze while he sipped his coffee.

“We were never allowed to, were we?” he added with a lightness that had an inner band of steel belting.

Her first instinct was to duck. Were they really going there?

An unavoidable voicing of the truth had emerged in her dealings with her siblings once she’d pulled Nic back into their lives. With the absence of their mother’s feelings to worry about, perhaps they were all examining the effects of silence, asking questions that might hurt but cleansed ancient wounds.

“No, only Demitri was allowed. And he made enough for all of us,” she added caustically, stating another unspoken truth.

Theo agreed to that with a pull of one corner of his mouth before he paced another straight line across her wall of windows. “Which leaves me wondering if I should let you make this one.”

Adara set aside her laptop and folded her hands over her belly. “Which one is that?”

“The same one our father made.”

A zing of alarm went through her, more like a paralyzing shock from a cattle prod, actually, leaving her limbs feeling loose and not her own. She clumsily swung her feet to the floor but didn’t have the strength to stand.

“If you’re talking about Gid—that man who pretended to be my husband, he lied, Theo. That’s why our father was the way he was. Because Mother betrayed him. Trust me when I tell you it leaves a bitterness you can’t rinse out of your mouth.” Her heart ached every day with loss and anger and hurt.

“Our father was a twisted, cruel bastard because he never forgave her. Is that what you’re going to do? Punish Gideon and take it out on his baby?”

Adara set her hand protectively on her belly. “Of course not!” She wasn’t being that cutting and heartless. Was she?

“Are you going to let him see his child, then?”

She swallowed, unable to say a clear yes or no. The thought of seeing Gideon made her go both hot and cold, burning with anticipation and freezing her with fear that he’d hurt her all over again. She couldn’t bear the thought of facing him, knowing how he’d tricked her while part of her still loved the man she’d thought of as her husband. Deep down she knew she couldn’t deny her child its father, but the reality of sharing custody with a charlatan was too much to contemplate.

Therefore, she was ignoring the need to make a decision, putting it off until she couldn’t avoid it any longer.

“He’ll always be in your life in one way or another. Are you going to twist the knife every chance you get? Or act like a civilized human being about it?”

“Stop it,” she said, hating the way he was painting her as small and vindictive. He didn’t understand how shattering it was to have your perceptions exploded like this. How much like grief it was to lose the man you loved not to an accident, but to duplicity. She rocked herself off the sofa and onto her feet. “Why are you defending him? What do you expect me to do? Lie down and let him wipe his feet on me the way our mother did? He abused my trust!”

“But he didn’t abuse you. Did he?” It was a real question, one with a rare thread of uncertainty woven into his tone.

“Of course not,” she muttered, instantly repelled by even the suggestion. Why? What did she care what other people thought of Gid—that man?

“You make it sound like you wouldn’t have stood for it, but we all hung around for it,” Theo pointed out bluntly.

She didn’t answer. There was nothing to say to that ugly truth. If she could see her toes, she knew they’d have been curled into the carpet.

“I was scared for you, you know,” Theo said gruffly. “When you married him. We didn’t know him, who he was, what he was capable of. I watched him like a hawk, and I would have stepped in if he’d made one wrong move, but he didn’t. And you...” He narrowed his eyes. “You changed. It took me a while to figure out what was different, but you weren’t scared anymore. Were you?”

Adara swallowed, thinking back to those first weeks and months of marriage, when she had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Gradually she’d begun to trust that the even temper her husband showed her was real. If the ground was icy, he steadied her. If a cab was coming, he drew her back.

And she remembered very clearly the last time her father had touched her in anger, a few weeks after her wedding. She’d been trying to explain why the engineer needed to make changes to a drawing and he’d batted the pencil from her hand, clipping her wrist with his knuckles.

Mere seconds later, Gideon had walked into the room, arriving to take her home.

Her father had changed before her eyes, remaining as blustery as always, but becoming slightly subdued, eyeing her uneasily as she retrieved her pencil and subtly massaged her wrist.

She hadn’t said a word, of course, merely confirmed with her father that they were finished for the day before she’d left with Gideon, but she’d realized she had a champion in her husband, passive and ignorant though he was to his role. As long as she had him, she had protection. Her father had never got physical with her again.

That sense of security had become precious to her. That’s why she’d been so devastated when she had thought Lexi had snatched him from her, and now the hurt was even worse, when she knew his shielding tenderness had never existed at all.

“It was in his best interest to keep me happy,” she said, voice husky and cold. “I was the facade that made him look real.”

“Maybe,” Theo agreed, twisting the knife that seemed lodged in her own heart. “In the beginning. But... Adara, I would have done everything I could to help you through this pregnancy regardless of any threats from Gideon. You’re my sister. I know what this baby means to you. But the way he spoke to me when he called, that was not just a father speaking. He was worried about both of you. Protective. I’ve always had a healthy respect for him, but I was intimidated that day. There was no way I was going to be the weak link that caused anything to happen to you or this baby.”

“Welcome to my world where you buy the snake oil and convince yourself it works,” she scoffed.

He stopped his pacing to stare accusingly at her. “You fooled me, you know. Both of you. I looked at how happy you two were in the last few months and I was hopeful. I thought finally one of us was shaking off our childhood and making a proper life for herself. You made me start to believe it was possible, and now—”

“He lied, Theo.”

“Maybe he had reason to,” he challenged and moved to retrieve an envelope from the pocket of his raincoat. He dropped it on the coffee table in front of her. “That’s from Nic. He asked me to come through on my way back from Tokyo and bring it to you. I didn’t read it, but Nic pointed out that he changed his own name to escape his childhood so he shouldn’t have judged Gideon for doing it. Maybe you shouldn’t, either.”