by Nalini Singh
Caleb was so angry that his hands shook as he cupped her cheeks. "She's a bitter old woman who should never have been given the care of a child. Don't let her words poison your life."
Vicki's tentative calm seemed to fracture completely at his words. Giving a ragged cry, she struck at his chest with her fists. "But my mother left me with her! She knew exactly what Ada was like and still she left me behind. Sometimes I hate Mother so much I scare myself."
She collapsed. If he hadn't caught her, easing her down, she would've hit the floor hard. Tugging her into the V of his thighs, he held her as she cried angry, raw, wrenching sobs. They were so violent that he worried for the child in her womb.
In the aftermath, he'd learn whether she had any room in that bruised heart to take a chance on him.
* * *
Ten
« ^ »
Vicki woke to darkness. She blinked and moaned, realizing she was alone in the master bedroom. Her nose was stuffy, her eyes dry and her mouth felt as if it had been filled with cotton wool. Rubbing her hands over her face, she sat up slowly then stumbled to the bathroom.
"I look like hell," she said to her reflection after throwing cool water on her face.
"You look beautiful." The quiet statement had her spinning around. Caleb stood in the doorway, dressed in his favorite dark gray sweatpants.
"Where were you?"
"I was working in the guest room." He jerked his head in that direction. "I didn't want you to be alone when you woke."
She gripped the edge of the sink, not sure she wanted him to see her like this. This vulnerable. This needy.
You'll go hide, get yourself under control, then smile at me in the morning as if nothing happened.
Breaking the habit was beyond difficult. "I feel like I've been scraped raw." It was an emotionally honest statement.
"You have." Caleb fully entered the room and put his hands on her shoulders. Their eyes met in the mirror. "God, baby, you scared me. So much rage, so much pain." The use of an endearment he rarely used for her showed her exactly how shaken he'd been. "You've been burying it inside since you were four years old. It's been killing you bit by slow bit." His arms wrapped around her shoulders.
"And you with me," she whispered, reaching up to touch one of his hands.
He dropped a kiss on her cheek. "We'll both heal because neither of us is a quitter."
Not like your parents.
The words were unspoken but she heard them bright as day. "I'm not so sure I'm as strong as you think," she admitted.
"Let me be the judge of that." His body was a warm wall of protection at her back. "You grew into the woman you are today despite Ada trying to suffocate your spirit. To me, that makes you a miracle."
The words were precious gifts to her. She used them to patch some of the holes left from her emotional storm. "Until death do us part." It was a vow stronger than the one she'd had the capacity to make on her wedding day.
To her surprise, he grinned. "If you think I'm ever letting you go, you've got another think coming. Me and God have an understanding."
The comment snapped the solemn mood and she found herself smiling, then giggling. "Caleb!" Turning in his arms, she hugged him tight. He was her husband and her strength. He was also her greatest weakness. It was time to stop running from that truth and embrace what it implied about her own needs and desires.
* * *
The next day, she decided there was something they had to finish. She found him in the attached garage changing the oil in her car. To her surprise and delight, he'd taken Monday off to be with her. Watching him, she wanted to sigh in pride. Her man was sexy as anything wearing those old jeans that were almost falling off his hips, a streak of grease across his chest.
"Can you pass me that rag, honey?" he said as he ducked out from under the hood.
She handed it to him, watching him wipe his fingers. When he gave her a slow smile, she knew what was on his mind. Shaking her head, she stepped back. "Not until we finish what we started last night."
He frowned. "I think you've hurt yourself enough for one week."
That his first thought concerned her welfare was all the impetus she needed. "We've laid my cards out on the table. What about yours?" A part of her whispered that there was one more huge thing they still hadn't even come close to discussing, but she shushed that voice.
After what he'd said to her last night, she had no more doubts that Miranda was gone from his life. That weekend in Wellington had clearly been an anger-fueled mistake on his part and one she could understand, no matter how much it hurt. It was time to truly forget about it and move on. For all their sakes.
He closed the hood. "There's nothing to talk about."
She reached out with one hand and touched his lower back. "Please, Caleb."
Shame and need combined to make an explosive combination. Caleb turned on her, forcing her to break the contact. "What? It's some sort of trade? You talk and then I have to?" It was the instinctive striking out of an injured animal, harsh and without thought to the damage it might do. The response came from the part of him that had been hurt in a way no child should ever be hurt. That part didn't want to suffer anymore.
Vicki drew back as if he'd hit her. "Actually, I only wanted to help you like you helped me." Her whole body was stiff. "But clearly I don't know the rules. I'm sorry I was stupid enough to come out here thinking we were finally ready to give an honest partnership a go." Teeth obviously clenched, she started to walk away.
Even the wounded animal inside him had no defense against his intrinsic need to protect her from distress, especially when he was the cause. It didn't matter if the cost of protecting her would be seeing shame dull her eyes. Losing her respect was his worst nightmare, but that was no excuse for the way he'd lashed out at her today and yesterday. No excuse for cowardice.
He manacled her wrist to stop her. "Sweetheart, don't."
"Don't what? Expect more from you than you're willing to give?" she asked without looking at him. "Don't ask for your trust?"
Tugging her back, he tumbled her into the V of his legs as he leaned against the car. She shifted to look at him at last, her eyes holding more anger than sadness. He ran his hand over her arm. "Can't you just accept that there are parts of my life I don't particularly want to talk about?" It was a last-ditch effort.
"Could you accept it of me?" she asked. "What if I told you, 'Caleb, here are the parts of my life that you're invited into and those parts over there, the painful, horrible parts, those you don't even get to know about.'" She crossed her arms. "Is that what I should've done last night? Should I crawl back into that shell you so hate and stop bothering you?" Her gunshot-fast words smacked him in the heart.
"You used to be so non-confrontational."
"Do you want that woman back?"
He squeezed her waist. "Are you kidding? That woman barely talked to me." Though he made his tone light, he was terrified. What if Vicki never looked at him in the same way again?
At last, she smiled. "When did you learn how to be charming?"
That was the one thing no one had ever accused him of. "When I found out you can't get enough of me." He told himself to have faith in his wife's heart—she'd never look down on him. But right now, the reasonable adult wasn't in charge. Instead, it was the vulnerable boy who'd grown up being treated as if he were something dirty.
Her laugh filled the garage, destroying the anger that had colored the air an instant before. It made him hope. "Talk to me, Caleb. If I don't know all of you, then I'll always feel like I'm letting you down and I've done enough of that. No more. Talk to me." The last words were a whisper filled with so much need that denying her became impossible.
He let out a breath and started speaking, trusting his wife as he'd never trusted another human being. "You've met my parents, seen how they live, their philosophy in life."
"Art is everything and rules are for other people," Vicki said, encapsulating the creed that Max and
Carmen lived by.
"Including the rules about fidelity and the meaning of marriage." Caleb could see comprehension start to dawn in her eyes. "They had an open marriage before I was conceived."
"Other lovers?" His wife's innocent eyes went wide. Her view on fidelity and loyalty was one of the things he adored most about her. She'd tried to divorce him but he knew absolutely that she'd never, not once, even thought about cheating on him.
He hadn't been as strong. Broken by her apparent dislike of being intimate with him, he'd wanted to take a lover, to show her that he was desired. That she'd never discovered his lapse was something he'd be forever grateful for.
"Yes." He confirmed her guess. "Apparently they were very mature about it. Then my mother got pregnant after she'd been with Max and another man … at the same time. She had no idea who the father was until I was born." The shame of his origins burned like acid. "Max was very accepting and supportive. On the surface, it was business as usual."
"But?"
"But soon after my birth, it became obvious I wasn't his—our blood types don't mesh." The discovery had destroyed the pretense and opened the door to hatred. "Even as a small child, I knew he couldn't stand the sight of me."
How did anyone ever learn to accept that the man he'd been raised to see as his father only saw him as a loathed mistake? "They never hid my origins from me and soon enough, I figured out why he hated me so much."
"What about your mother?"
"She had to make a decision very early on and she decided to stick by my father. I was pretty, much left on my own. There was no violence. But there was no love, either." How many times had he walked into a room only to watch his father walk out? As an adult, he couldn't understand how Max could have behaved that way to a child, someone who would have worshipped him given the slightest encouragement.
It was pathetic how much Caleb had craved Max's love. "I wanted my father to be proud of me but I eventually realized that nothing I did would ever make him happy. I'm a living reminder that another man touched his wife, that he not only allowed such a thing to happen, but also participated. Nothing I do will erase that truth."
"Oh, darling." Vicki kissed him gently. "How could they have done that? Blame you for their choices? You were a baby, an innocent."
Looking into blue eyes filled with anger on his behalf, he felt long-buried injuries surface with agonizing fury. But hope whispered through the pain. "Maybe it would've been better if my biological father was a stranger but the thing was, he wasn't. At the time, he was Max's best friend. We're carbon copies as far as looks go."
"You've met him?"
"He dropped by a few times over the years to see 'his boy' I hated those visits because after he'd gone, everything would get worse. Max … I swear that sometimes, he wished he could kill me and remove me from his sight."
She made a sharp sound and her hands clenched on his biceps. "Why didn't you go away with your biological father?"
"Wade? Wade is a drifter, a drunk with no fixed address and nothing but a battered guitar to his name. The real reason he came to see me was that he knew he could get a few dollars out of Carmen when Max wasn't looking. I haven't seen him for almost ten years, though I heard from Lara that he's shacked up with someone down south."
"What about Lara?"
"That's what hurts the most. When we were kids, I was the one who looked after her, made sure she ate and had baths. But as she grew older and recognized that she was the clear favorite in the family, she began to mimic Max and Carmen. After a while it wasn't imitation anymore."
It had ripped him to pieces to see rejection in the eyes of the very girl whose knees he'd kissed after a hundred falls. Sometimes, he thought it was Lara who'd done him the most damage. He'd become immune to Max and Carmen but he'd been wide open for her knife to the heart.
And there it was, his whole sordid history. Conceived in prurient lust, he had a biological father who was a worthless drunk, a stepfather who despised him and a mother who'd chosen to emotionally abandon him.
Yet he'd dared to dream, to reach for someone so pure and bright, someone untouched by the tawdriness that was his legacy.
Most of their marriage he'd spent grateful that Vicki didn't know the truth of where he'd come from. Sure, she'd seen that he had humble roots, but she hadn't known the true extent of his degradation. He'd never wanted her to feel shame at being Caleb Callaghan's wife, never wanted to destroy the shine in her eyes.
"We're the same," she whispered.
It was the one response he wasn't prepared for. "Vicki?"
"I might be the biological offspring of my parents but that's only by chance. They serially cheated on each other. Grandmother placed the sole blame on my mother, but I'm not stupid. I listened to what the servants gossiped about. My father was, and still is, known for his penchant for young secretaries." She shrugged. "The one good thing you can say about them is that they divorced and didn't make me miserable by keeping me between them."
"No, they let Ada do that." His anger on her behalf momentarily overcame his shock at the way she'd placed them both in the same category. "They'd have done better to put you in boarding school. At least that way you wouldn't have had to grow up listening to constant emotional abuse."
To his surprise, Vicki laughed and hugged him. "Thank you for being angry for me." Pulling back, her face grew serious. "If you can be angry for me, I'm allowed to be furious for you. No more, Caleb. I've drawn the line. We ensure Lara's kids get taken care of but everyone else is on their own. I won't have them acting like it's their right to ask you for money, for support, when all they've ever given you is pain."
He'd never imagined the moment would come when his wife would fashion herself his protector, accepting his darkest secret with honest simplicity that gave him the tools to do so himself.
The pain of his parents' rejection wouldn't disappear overnight, but he knew it would never again be the razor-sharp anguish he'd grown used to. He'd been accepted by someone far more important to him than a man and woman who'd long ago lost the right to his respect, someone he adored with every breath he took. "Thank you, sweetheart."
She shook her head. "No thanks necessary. We'll look after each other. You save me from Queen Ada and I'll save you from Max, Carmen and Lara. Deal?"
He grinned at her use of the nickname he'd created for her grandmother, even as he thanked God for her. It was clear that the impact of her own emotional upheaval was still surging through her, but equally obvious was her fierce desire to ensure his happiness. How could he not be crazy about her? "Deal."
* * *
That Tuesday, Victoria sent Caleb off to work with a smile and a kiss. She loved that she could do that—kiss her husband goodbye with every ounce of passion she had in her and not worry that she was doing the wrong thing.
"Be home for dinner," she ordered.
"Yes, ma'am." He grinned and blew her a kiss as he walked out to the car, a lightness to his step she'd never before seen.
Laughing, she returned the gesture then walked back into the house to get started on her work for the charities. "My work," she said, doing a little dance. Her whole body echoed the lightness in Caleb's step. It felt as if a cloud had lifted from both of them.
Shadows continued to linger but the festering darkness had been confronted and banished. Maybe one day they'd speak about Miranda, but now that they'd finally become a solid unit, it seemed foolhardy to bring it up. It was done, and given Caleb's views on fidelity, he'd probably punished himself a hundred times over for his slip. For the sake of their child, she had to wipe away that last remnant of pain and move on to other things, such as her new job.
She had no illusions the work would be easy. It might even be impossible. But she was going to try, and no one could ever laugh at her for that, for attempting to be a woman she could be proud of. Before she could earn Caleb's respect as a partner, she had to rebuild her own self-image, had to become happy with who she was as an individual apart fr
om her husband.
She wasn't a business or legal whiz, nor was she artistically gifted, but she had a way with people. This job was simply a tool to help her understand and appreciate her own strengths.
Picking up a few of the documents she'd printed out from Helen's e-mails, she started to read. Some of the technical, money stuff she put aside. She wasn't too proud to ask Caleb for help, aware that he looked at a lot of financial reports during his working day. However, it boosted her confidence when she quickly grasped the majority of the issues.
Helen was right. The charities bled money and, unfortunately, there was no way to plug the gaps. These operations were already run on a shoestring and a prayer—injections of cash at regular intervals were a necessity. As Helen had said, not one costly dinner, but a steady stream of money.
Vicki took out a piece of paper and started noting some names. She knew people who knew people and those people had lots of influence in the right places. Perhaps all that mingling was about to come in handy.
* * *
Caleb cleared his files in record time and managed to make it home before six. He had no intention of letting Vicki down, not after everything they'd gone through the previous weekend. If he was being honest, part of him wanted to make sure she hadn't changed her mind about him.
The sudden vulnerability was uncomfortable but he knew the look in Vicki's eyes as she welcomed him home would make it bearable. However, when he arrived, it was to find her closeted in her study with dinner nowhere in sight. After a flare of irritation, he dialed out for Chinese. Then he headed to her.
"Busy?" he asked, standing in the doorway of the room she used as her study and sitting room. In the past, she'd often retreated here and he'd felt shut out of her life. Though he knew this wasn't the same, the memories that came with the room were enough to aggravate the already raw edges of his emotions.
