Vows They Can't Escape

by Heidi Rice

  ‘Why would I bother to correct you? I didn’t think it mattered any more. It was so long ago.’

  ‘Of course it matters. I deserve to know what really happened. Especially if you’re still having nightmares because—’

  ‘Why, Dane?’ she interrupted. ‘Why do you deserve to know? When you never wanted our baby the way I did?’

  He tensed and something flashed over his face—something that might almost have been hurt. But it was gone so quickly she was sure she had misinterpreted it. Dane had never wanted the baby—that much she knew for sure.

  ‘If you had, you would have demanded to see me,’ she said, cutting off the painful thought. ‘Instead of assuming I’d had an abortion.’

  ‘I did demand to see you.’ Temper flashed in his eyes. ‘Your father had his goons throw me out.’

  ‘He...what?’ The breath left her lungs in a painful rush. Anguish squeezed her chest. ‘Did they hurt you?’

  She could still remember those men. They’d terrified her, even though her father had always insisted they were there to protect her.

  His eyes narrowed, and the annoyed expression was one she recognised. If there was one thing Dane had always despised, it was anything remotely resembling pity.

  ‘I handled myself,’ he said.

  She didn’t believe him. At nineteen he’d been tough and muscular, and as tall as he was now, but he’d also been a lot skinnier, a lot less solid—still partly a boy for all his hard knocks. Four of those men against one of him would have done some serious damage.

  She noticed the crescent-shaped scar cutting across his left eyebrow and knew it hadn’t been there before—she’d once known every one of the scars on his body. The scars he would never talk about.

  She pointed at the thin white mark bisecting his brow. ‘Where did you get that scar?’

  He shifted, avoiding her touch. She dropped her hand, aware of the heavy weight in her belly.

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  He sounded unconcerned. But that guarded expression told a different story. He did remember—he just wasn’t prepared to discuss it.

  The hollow pain blossomed. Why was she pressing the point? Maybe because he’d held her last night, through her nightmare...making her feel weak and needy. And then made love to her this morning with such unerring skill, coaxing the exact response he’d wanted out of her.

  He’d held all the power in their relationship and it was now brutally obvious he held it still.

  ‘My father had no right to treat you that way,’ she said. ‘If you tell me what injuries you suffered I’ll have my legal team work out suitable compensation.’

  Paying him off suddenly seemed like the perfect solution. The only way to get herself free and clear of him and the emotions he stirred in her. Her only chance of acquiring the distance she’d surrendered so easily ever since walking into his office yesterday.

  ‘Don’t play the princess with me. I don’t want your money. I never did. And I sure as hell don’t need it any more.’

  ‘It’s a simple matter of compen—’

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ he said, slicing through her objection. ‘He did. If anyone owes me an apology, it’s him.’

  ‘Well, he’s been dead for five years. So you’re not likely to get one.’

  ‘I don’t want an apology from a dead guy—what I want is for you to acknowledge what he did to us was wrong. Why is that so damn hard for you?’

  She threw her hands up in the air. ‘Fine. I agree what he did was wrong. Is that enough for you?’

  ‘No. I want you to stay here with me.’

  ‘What has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘He split us up before we were ready. We’ve got a chance now to take some time to say goodbye to each other properly.’

  His gaze flicked down her frame, and the inevitable flare of heat she felt in response made it doubly clear exactly what their goodbye was supposed to entail.

  ‘We’re both grown-ups now and we deserve to finish this thing right. Why can’t you see that?’

  Because I’m scared I might still care about you. Too much.

  ‘I’ve told you—it’s just bad timing.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. If you’re running the company you can make time for this. But you won’t. And I want to know why.’

  ‘I won’t because I don’t want to spend time with you,’ she shouted back, determined to mean it. ‘If your ego can’t accept that, that’s your problem—not mine. We’re over—we’ve been over for ten years.’

  ‘Yet I can still make you come so hard you scream. And you haven’t let another guy do that to you for five years. Five years is a heck of a long time.’

  The blush flushed through her to the roots of her hair. His eyes went razor-sharp.

  ‘What the...? Has it been longer than five years?’

  How could he know that?

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ She scrambled to deny it. Knowing she couldn’t lie because he would read her like a book and know the truth instantly.

  Dane had always been able to use her need for him against her. He’d never treated her like a wife when they were married. Had never been capable of opening up to her and sharing anything of himself with her. And she’d been so pathetically grateful for any sign that he cared about her at all, she’d found that romantic.

  She knew the truth now, though—that his possessiveness, his protectiveness, hadn’t been a sign of his love. It had simply been a sign of his need to claim ownership. If he ever found out that she’d never shared her bed with any other man but him, she’d be handing him a loaded gun.

  ‘You don’t have to say it,’ he said. ‘It’s written all over your face.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ She stormed off, determined to lock herself in the bathroom before he discovered the humiliating truth and shot down the last remaining shreds of her composure.

  His laugh followed her all the way into the shower cubicle.

  * * *

  Who knew Xanthe could be so cute when she was mad?

  Dane let out a strained chuckle as she slammed the bathroom door behind her, then rubbed the heel of his palm over the ache in the centre of his chest. The choking feeling returned.

  It shouldn’t really matter to him that his wife hadn’t slept with that many other guys, but somehow it did. It also shouldn’t matter to him that she didn’t want to hang out at the hotel for another night.

  He wasn’t a possessive guy, or a particularly protective one. But with Xanthe it had always been different. Because he’d been her first. And she’d once been pregnant with his child.

  And seeing her have that nightmare, knowing it wasn’t the only one she’d had, had affected him somehow. Made him feel guilty for not being there when she’d needed him, even though his head was telling him it wasn’t his fault.

  She’d been stressed and exhausted when she’d arrived in his office yesterday. Enough to face-plant right in front of him. And in that moment she had reminded him of the girl she’d been—the girl he’d felt so in tune with because of the way she’d been bullied by her father. That girl had always been trying to please a guy who would never be pleased. And now it looked as if she was still doing it.

  That had to be why she’d worked herself into the ground to take on her old man’s company. She’d never had any interest in it back then. He didn’t doubt she was good at her job—she’d always been smart and conscientious, and it seemed she’d added a new layer of ball-buster to the mix since then. But if she enjoyed it so much why didn’t she have a life outside it?

  He knew how easy it was to lose sight of your personal life, your personal well-being when you were building a business. He’d done the same in the last few years. Hell, he’d only managed a couple of short-term hook-ups since they’d split. But his company had been his dream right from when he was a little kid and he’d hung around down by the marina to avoid his father’s belt.

  And he was a lot tougher than Xanthe would eve
r be. Because he’d been born into a place where you hit the ground running or you just hit it—hard.

  He knew how to take care of number one. He always had. Because no one else had wanted the job. Xanthe had always been way too open, way too eager to please. And it bugged him that she was still trying to please a dead man.

  He didn’t like seeing that hollow, haunted look lurking behind the tough girl facade. And she was still his wife until those papers were signed.

  After getting dressed, he picked up his cell phone and keyed in his attorney’s number. He’d promised to sign the damn papers, but who said he had to sign them straight away?

  ‘Jack, hi,’ he said, when his attorney answered on the second ring. ‘About those papers I sent over yesterday...’

  ‘I had a look at them last night,’ Jack replied, cutting straight to the chase as usual. ‘I was just about to call you about them.’

  ‘Right. I’ve agreed to sign them, but I—’

  ‘As your legal counsel, I’d have to advise against you doing that,’ Jack interrupted him.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, his gut tensing the way it had when he was a kid and he’d been bracing himself for a blow from his old man’s belt. ‘They’re just a formality, aren’t they?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Jack replied. ‘You guys haven’t lived together for over ten years, and two to five years separation is the upper limit for most jurisdictions when it comes to contesting a divorce.’

  ‘Then what’s the deal with telling me not to sign the papers?’

  Jack cleared his throat and shifted into lecture mode. ‘Truth is, your wife doesn’t require your signature on anything to get a divorce. She could have just filed these papers in London as soon as she found out about the failure to file the original documents and I would have gotten a heads-up from her legal representative. That’s what got me digging a little deeper—I got to wondering why she’d come all the way to Manhattan to deliver them in person and that’s when I found something curious buried in the small print.’

  ‘What?’ Dane asked, the hairs on his neck standing to attention.

  The fact that Xanthe hadn’t needed to bring the documents over in person had already occurred to him. That she hadn’t needed to bring them at all seemed even more significant. But the anxiety jumping in his stomach wasn’t making him feel good about that any more.

  ‘There’s a codicil stating that neither one of you will make a claim on any property acquired after the original papers should have been filed.’

  ‘Then I guess I can quit worrying about her trying to claim back-alimony.’ He huffed out a breath. He was not as pleased with the implication that Xanthe had made a point of not wanting any part of his success as he ought to be.

  ‘Sure, but here’s the thing—it goes on to state all the assets that can’t be claimed on. Why would she need to itemise those in writing? She’d have a hell of a legal battle trying to claim any of your property on the basis of a separation made years before your company even began trading. But that’s when I got to thinking. What if it wasn’t your property she was trying to protect but her own?’

  ‘I don’t get it. I couldn’t make any claim on her property.’

  Did she think he wanted her property? Her old man had once accused him of being a gold-digger. Of getting his daughter pregnant and marrying her to get his hands on Carmichael’s money. Had she believed the old bastard? Was that why she’d let him go on believing she’d had an abortion? To punish him for something he hadn’t done?

  Anger and injured pride collided in his gut, but it did nothing to disguise the hurt.

  ‘Turns out you’re wrong about that,’ Jack continued. ‘You’ve got grounds to make a claim on her company. I just got off the phone with a colleague in the UK who checked out the terms of her father’s will. A will that was written years before she even met you. One thing’s for sure—it answers the question of why she came all the way over to Manhattan to get you to sign her divorce papers.’

  As Dane listened to Jack lecturing him about the legalities and the terms of Charles Carmichael’s will his stomach cramped and fury at the sickening injustice of it all started to choke him. The same futile fury he’d felt after the beating he’d taken all those years ago because he’d wanted to see his wife, to know what had happened to his child.

  Each word Jack uttered felt like another blow he couldn’t defend himself against. Suddenly he was furious with Xanthe as well as her old man. For making him feel like that again. Worthless and desperate, yearning for something he couldn’t have.

  She’d planned to play him all along by coming here. How much of what had happened in the last day had even been real? She’d said she didn’t want to spend any more time with him. And now he knew why—because once those papers were signed she’d have the guarantee she needed that he couldn’t touch her father’s precious company.

  She’d lied. Because she’d decided he didn’t deserve the truth. She’d even accused him of not caring about their baby. And then...

  He thought about her whimpers of need, those hot cries as she came apart in his arms. She hadn’t just lied to him, she’d used his hunger for her against him. Turned him back into that feral kid begging for scraps from a woman who didn’t want him. Then she’d slapped him down and offered to pay him off when he’d had the audacity to ask for one more night.

  He signed off with Jack, then sat down and waited for her to come out of the bathroom. The bitterness of her betrayal tasted sour on his tongue.

  The good news was he had more leverage now than he could ever have dreamt of. And he was damn well going to use it. To show her that no one kicked him around—not any more.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT TOOK XANTHE twenty minutes to realise she could not hide in the bathroom for the rest of her natural life.

  She’d faced a hostile board for five years and her father’s stern disapproval for a great deal longer. She could deal with one hot as hell boat designer.

  But even so she jumped when a knock sounded on the door.

  ‘You still in there or have you disappeared down the drain?’

  The caustic tone was almost as galling as the flush that worked its way up her torso at the low rumble of his voice.

  ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

  ‘A package got delivered for you.’

  Her clothes.

  Hallelujah.

  She reached for the bolt on the door, then paused.

  ‘Could you leave it there?’

  With the hotel’s satin robe somewhere on the floor of the suite and his T-shirt neatly folded to give back to him on the vanity unit, all she had to cover her nakedness was a towel.

  ‘Why don’t you order us some breakfast?’ she added, trying to sound unconcerned. Because clearly he was not going to do the decent thing and just leave her in peace.

  ‘You want the package—you’re gonna have to come out and get it.’

  Blast the man.

  Grasping the towel tight over her breasts, she flicked back the bolt and opened the door. She shoved the T-shirt at him, far too aware of his spectacular abs peeping out from behind his unbuttoned shirt.

  He took it, but lifted the package out of reach when she tried to grab it. ‘Not so fast.’

  ‘Give me the package,’ she demanded, using her best don’t-mess-with-me voice—the one that had always worked so well in board meetings but seemed to be having no impact at all on the man in front of her. ‘It has my clothes in it. If you still want to talk we can talk, but I refuse to discuss anything with you naked.’

  Because look how well that had turned out the last time she’d done it.

  He kept the package aloft. ‘If I give you this, I want a promise that you’ll come out of there.’

  She frowned at him, noticing the bite in his tone. Something was off. Something was way off—the muscle in his jaw was working overtime to keep that impassive look on his face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Not a thing,�
� he said, his jaw as hard as granite. ‘Except that you’ve been sulking for a good half hour.’

  She hadn’t been sulking. She’d been considering her options—very carefully. But she was finished with being a coward now. Better to face him and get whatever he had to discuss over with. Because standing in a towel with that big male body inches away was not helping.

  She reached out for the package. ‘Deal.’

  He slapped it into her palm.

  Whipping back into the bathroom, she locked the door and leaned against it. Something was most definitely wrong. Where had the wry amusement gone? That searing look he’d given her had been as hard as it was hot.

  Blowing out a breath, she got her new clothes out of the packaging. Sitting in the bathroom wouldn’t solve anything. It was time to face the music and wrap this up once and for all.

  * * *

  Five minutes later she walked back into the suite, feeling a lot more steady with the new jeans and T-shirt and fresh underwear on. He’d donned his T-shirt and discarded the overshirt, but even covered, his pecs looked impressive as they flexed against the soft cotton while he levered himself off the couch.

  She noticed the divorce papers on the coffee table in front of him. He must have had them couriered over. Relief was mixed with a strange emptiness at the thought that he’d already signed them. Which was, of course, ridiculous.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ she said, polite and distant, even though her body was already humming with awareness. Clearly that would never change.

  ‘Really?’

  He still sounded surly. Maybe she should have come out a bit sooner.

  She didn’t dignify the question with an answer. Crossing the room to the coffee pot on the sideboard, she poured herself a cup to buy some time. Even after half an hour of prepping she didn’t know what to say to him.

  The tense silence stretched between them as she took a quick gulp of the hot liquid and winced. ‘I see you still like your coffee strong enough to Tarmac a road,’ she commented.

  The unbidden memory made her fingers tremble. She turned to find him watching her.