Harlequin Presents--June 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Dani Collins

  “To dissolving this...arrangement. Once we’ve sorted out your reputation too, we can be done with each other. And as there are already lots of positive stories in the world’s media about your wedding, as well as the interviews we’ve done with Ms. Jones and your sisters, I’d say we’re nearly there already.”

  For once, Clare didn’t wait to see what he would say. She didn’t think she could bear it if he simply agreed with her. Or made a joke of it.

  So she carefully held the hem of her gorgeous pink skirt with one hand and walked away, wondering why she was feeling so odd when she was on the cusp of having her freedom again.

  She’d never wanted more in her life to be called back. Never wanted to hear her name on his lips so badly.

  She didn’t even have to give up her company. Yes, she’d pay Dev back what he’d had to pay the mobster, even if it took her years to do it, but it wasn’t a deadly sword hanging over her head any longer.

  Yet, instead of elation, all she felt was desolation.

  As if she’d been left all alone in the world again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “ARE YOU GOING to talk to him?”

  Dev had known this was coming. He’d seen the combative look in Clare’s eyes over the last three days. He knew all her looks now.

  Her “I’m ready for battle” look.

  Her “I want you so I’m going to have you” look.

  Her “Do you really want to try me?” look.

  And Dev adored them all. But this look indicating that she was going to prod and push, he disliked with a vengeance.

  Her chin tilted high, her wide mouth pursed in dissatisfaction; she’d been retreating from him ever since he’d told her that she was going to be free of the crime lord. Irritation flickered through him. He hadn’t expected her to fall on him in gratitude but he had expected... What?

  She’d reminded them both of their agreement. That they were getting much closer to being able to end this charade. It was a reminder he’d desperately needed.

  A reminder he shouldn’t have needed, given how busy they’d been continuing to make his halo shine.

  They hadn’t been free for even one evening.

  If it wasn’t some wedding ceremony that Diya insisted they both join, it was attending a charity auction where Clare had trumpeted to the media about the annual charity retreat Athleta held with star athletes. Another afternoon had been spent at an inner-city youth hostel that Dev had always supported financially.

  Derek and Angelina had been there at the hostel, all their issues resolved. Although he was pleased for his friend, something about how in tune they’d been had grated at Dev, amplifying the disconnect between him and Clare.

  They had spent a perfect California afternoon—Derek and he playing flag football with the teens while Clare and Angelina spent more than two hours in conversation with the warden and the press that Clare had invited.

  If he wasn’t so wrapped up in his own thoughts, Dev would have laughed at how dictatorial his wife could get when she was on a schedule. How dedicated she was to her job of making him look good.

  How easily she’d weaved herself into his life. Into his family’s affections.

  He’d seen his brother—who was even more allergic to having heart-to-hearts than Dev was—have a long, involved talk with her. He’d even seen his father voluntarily strike up conversations with her. Not that it was a big leap to find Clare interesting.

  He’d seen Diya and his older sister with her—their heads bent together, laughing at one joke or another. And then Clare would look up—as if she had some kind of sensor for locating him—and they would stare at each other across the room, that ever-present desire shimmering like an arc between them, connecting them.

  He would normally have winked and smiled at her, and she’d have blushed. Whatever the time of the day. Wherever they were.

  Except she’d stopped smiling and blushing at him during the last three days. She didn’t chatter away asking about this aunt who’d run away with her girlfriend twenty years ago creating a huge scandal or that uncle who’d maintained two families for years. She had retreated from him.

  Each night, Dev had crawled into bed, expecting to be given the cold shoulder there too. Dreading it, in fact. Because he wasn’t sure he could stand if she turned away from him there as well. Not just because he wanted to make love to her again. That desire for her was always there. He’d made peace with that.

  But because those nights with her had become his escape from the grief he still felt being back here, in his family home. From the pain of feeling like a stranger among his own family.

  Holding her, kissing her, making love to her had become the anchor he needed to shore up his days.

  But to his shock and unending relief, her slender body had pressed up against his. Her palm on his chest, she’d burrowed into him.

  She’d done it again last night too. The soft warmth of her body had instantly set him on edge.

  “Clare, what’s—”

  She had pressed her palm over his mouth and shook her head. “I don’t want to talk, Dev. Please, will you just...make love to me?”

  “Yes,” he had whispered, taking the easy way out.

  Then she’d pulled him on top of her. The dark night had swallowed up his ragged moan as he entered her in one deep thrust. The breeze buried her gasp as he took her with a desire that didn’t abate until he’d driven them both to a glorious release.

  And when he’d found her cheek damp afterward, Dev had simply held her while her breathing slowly returned to normal. While she slipped into sleep. But he had stayed awake. Thinking.

  He had no idea what the hell he was expecting from her or himself. They weren’t, after all, truly married.

  “Are you just going to pretend that I’m not standing here haranguing you?” she demanded now, interrupting his thoughts.

  “You sound like a proper fishwife, sweetheart,” Dev said, determined to make her smile today. He looked up and his own smile disappeared. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. Hard.

  Today, she was wearing a light blue kurta that made her beautiful eyes pop, with a wide round neck and flared pants. A tiny red bindi between her eyebrows sent shock waves through him.

  Eyes wide, he stared at the delicate black bead necklace at her throat with a diamond at the center.

  His fingers were shaking when he pushed his hair back. “What—” he had to clear her throat “—what are you wearing? I thought all the ceremonies were finished last night.”

  A wariness entered her eyes, and she touched her fingers to her throat. “They are. Diya and Richard are leaving for Malibu in two hours. This...your aunts and Deedi and Diya...they had a small ceremony for me first thing this morning.”

  “What?” he barked.

  But she didn’t back down. “Since we cheated them out of attending our wedding, they sprang a surprise celebration for me. To welcome me as the daughter-in-law of the house. Your father was there too. They all gave me presents—jewelry, clothes. And this...” she said, touching that necklace again.

  “It belonged to my mother.”

  “I know. Diya told me. I told her I couldn’t just take it like that. They didn’t listen. She kept saying your mother would’ve wanted me to have it. That she’d have been overjoyed if she’d been here today.”

  Dev looked away, feeling as if his heart had crawled up into his throat. “Of course.”

  “You don’t have to be upset about this,” Clare said to his back, her voice all matter-of-fact. He wondered if she could sense the chaotic mess his heart was in. If she could see how much he wanted her to have it. How much...he was struggling with that want.

  He wanted to let this thing between them grow into what it had the potential to be. He wanted to lean into it with all his being and yet...something stopped him. Something
always held him back.

  Being here, in his childhood home, didn’t help.

  “I’m not planning to steal it, Dev. I figured it was easier to go along with what they wanted and then just return it to you afterward. Unless you wanted me to tell them that I’m nothing but a fake bride.”

  He jerked his head back to her and saw the anger in her eyes. “Hell, Clare. I didn’t think you were stealing it.”

  She shrugged and turned away. “It’s obvious from your face that it means a great deal to you.”

  “What does a trinket mean when she’s not here? When you can’t bear to...” To even look at me, he meant to say. But he caught the words. “You should keep it. It’s not like I’m going to run out and get another wife anytime soon. Or ever.”

  “I don’t want it,” she insisted stubbornly. “Not when it’s an empty gesture. Not when it comes without...”

  “Without what?”

  “Without what it truly represents.”

  Dev’s voice rose. “I can’t believe we’re fighting about that necklace when there’s...” He raised his palms and sighed. “I’m sorry, Clare. I’m not myself. Not in this place.”

  “I get that, Dev, I do.” Her expression softened. “I promised myself I’d be polite and calm with you today.”

  “As opposed to the sweet and tart woman that pushes and prods?” he said with a laugh.

  She walked over to the bedroom door and closed it. “Dev, talk to your father please.”

  “You really want to pick a fight with me today, don’t you?”

  She frowned, her beautiful blue eyes not leaving his face. “Not at all. But I’m not going to back down from it, if that’s what it takes.”

  Dev gave in. “Fine. Why would you push me to have a heart-to-heart with the man who crushed me when I was young?”

  “Because I think he’s finally realized he’s made a mistake. Because he doesn’t know how to ask you for your forgiveness.”

  “Why are you on his side, Clare?”

  Only when he heard it did Dev realize how pathetic he sounded. How childish. How he seemed to have morphed back into a needy, temperamental pre-teen inside these walls.

  Was it this that had been bothering him? That Clare got along so well with his family, with his father? That he...wanted her to be his and no one else’s?

  She was his. Only his. The first and only woman who’d seen more in him than he himself did.

  She came and took hold of one of his hands. Lifted it and pressed her mouth to his knuckles. Cradled his palm to her face. “I’m on your side, Dev. Always.”

  “Then why do you ask me to do this when you know how impossible I’d find it?”

  “Because I care about you.” She pressed her hand to his chest, boldly. As if she was staking a claim on his heart. As if she was laying claim to the whole of him. His pulse rushed deafeningly, but the look in her eyes was calm. She was composed and elegant and the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. “Because I think that talking to him, letting him say his bit...whether it’s to ask for forgiveness or to justify his attitude back then... I think it will help you. I think it will finally burn away the resentment and anger that’s been building up inside you for so long. Because I think until you face your past and gain closure, there’s no possibility of a happy future for you.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” he retorted.

  “But are you, really? Did you let your brother get close to you? Did you let Diya see the real you? Or did you only come to show off to your father? To prove to him how rich and powerful you’ve become. To thumb your nose at him. I’ve spent some time talking to him recently, and for a sixty-five-year-old man stuck inside his own rigid set of values, I think he knows he wronged you and he’s really been trying to change.”

  “Of course he’s changed. But only because I’ve changed, can’t you see? I’m not the lazy, useless, rogue he used to call me. I’ve become something more. I’ve amassed all this wealth and power and I finally made the family name proud. He can afford to be proud of me now. He can afford to call me his son.”

  “But it’s not just recently, Dev. That’s what Deedi was trying to tell you. He’s followed your progress for years. Your entire swimming career, your first company, your first takeover, your work with Athleta. He’s been proud of you for a very long time now.”

  The bitterness inside him was so deep and dense that nothing she was saying impacted on it. Dev wanted so badly to shift it. To cleanse himself of the poison. If not for himself, then for her. To be open to whatever it was she was trying to bring into his life. But he couldn’t. “It is easy for him to say he’s changed, Clare. Easy for him to give me the approval and the love he denied me once.”

  “But it’s you who’s denying all those things now, Dev. Don’t you see? You’re measuring yourself by his standards from back then. You’re letting ugly things from the past dictate your present and your future.”

  A frustrated groan fell from his mouth. He grasped her shoulders. “Why are you forcing this discussion on me?”

  “Because I’ve seen the shadows of loneliness in your eyes these past few days. I’ve seen how you look at your nieces and nephews, as if you’re an ocean away from everyone. I’ve seen you say no to almost every overture and invitation that Diya and Deedi have made to you. I’ve seen you shut them all down repeatedly. Hold yourself apart.”

  “Because I’m angry and hurt and I...want so badly to belong. But I think...” Dev pressed his fingers to his temples, hating the sick churning in his stomach. “I don’t know how. I’ve stayed away for too long. I...”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him, this woman who had a core of steel at her center. “Then take the first step, Dev. Talk to him. Try and sort it out. Make peace with your father. For yourself, if no one else. Despite what he did, if I had one more chance to see my dad, I’d take it.”

  Dev held her for a few seconds but his breath didn’t settle. He felt as if he was standing on the outside again. Not knowing how to read or what to say.

  “I can’t,” he said abruptly, letting Clare go. “I can’t open myself up to all that pain again. I can’t give him or anyone else the chance to...”

  “Hurt you again,” Clare finished sadly, stepping back from him.

  Dev swallowed and shrugged.

  “So what does this mean for us then?” she asked quietly.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, feeling like a fool. “It doesn’t change anything. This was just another part of our agreement, Clare. This was just you...giving me a hand with getting through some difficult days. Nothing has changed.”

  She didn’t answer. And Dev felt a helplessness that he hadn’t known in a long time.

  He pulled her to him and she came.

  “I want to kiss you,” he said, plunging his fingers into her hair. “I need to taste you, sweetheart.”

  “Yes, please,” she whispered.

  He felt as if he’d conquered the world. He took her mouth, employing all the skill he possessed to push her to the same sense of desperation he felt. She was sweet and warm, like light in a cave of darkness.

  And when he let her go, she looked up at him. Her long fingers cradled his cheek with a tenderness he didn’t deserve. “I’m planning to leave for London tonight on the red-eye.”

  * * *

  Dev’s ferocious scowl told Clare everything she needed to know. She knew that she was pushing him when he wasn’t himself. But as she’d already learned, there was no right or wrong time to do this.

  To tell the man she loved that she...was an absolute fool for him.

  “I’ll have the jet ready in an hour or two. We can leave together.”

  “No.” She stepped away from him, feeling as if she was cleaving herself in two. “I’d prefer to go alone. I haven’t been to the office in weeks, and Amy and Bea, I kno
w, are wondering where the hell I’ve got to.”

  “So I’ll be in the way of your reunion with your friends?” he asked harshly.

  “No. I just want to get my head on straight.” She pressed her hand to his mouth, incapable of not touching him.

  He pulled her hand away but didn’t let go. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Clare.”

  “I’ve fallen in love with you, Dev.” Her hand went to the black bead necklace at her throat. “I... I want this marriage to be real. I want to be Mrs. Kohli. I want this family to be mine as well as yours. More than anything, I want to share my life with you too. Are you happy to modify our arrangement to suit my needs?”

  He didn’t blink. He simply stood there, staring at her.

  Clare laughed bitterly. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. This is why I pushed you. Because I know how it feels for past scars to dictate your future. To have been so hurt badly that you close yourself off to everything. Even love. I waited for my dad to come back to me for years, Dev. Decades. You know he never did. You know what he ended up doing to me. You saw what it took for me to come back from it. You restored my faith in human nature just when it was ready to be completely shattered. But I can’t wait around like that again for a man to love me. I can’t...because it will break me this time. Because I love you so much and you’re just not ready for it—if you ever will be. You don’t want love in your life, do you? So, yes, I have to go. I have to start putting the pieces of my life back together again. I have to decide who I want to be...next.”

  Clare walked up to the man who’d become her entire world in such a short space of time. She kissed his bristly cheek and breathed in the delicious scent of him.

  “Loving you has only made my life better, Dev. That will never change,” she whispered. “But you have to choose happiness, Dev. With me. You have to decide if I’m worth trusting. If I’m worth taking a chance on. If you can finally let me into your heart.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DEV DIDN’T KNOW why he was still there—at his parents’ house in California. In this house where he had never felt like he fit.