Marriage Without Love & More Than a Convenient Marriage?

by Penny Jordan

  His conscience had first pinched him the morning of their honeymoon though. She’d come to the breakfast table so fresh faced and shy, barely able to meet his gaze. He’d been incapable of forming thoughts or words, his entire being filled with excited pride as he recollected how trusting and sweetly responsive she’d been.

  “Any regrets?” she’d asked into the silence, hands in her lap, breath subtly held.

  “None,” he’d lied, because he’d had a small one. It had niggled that she was so obviously good and pristine and unquestioning. He’d soiled her in a way, marrying her under pretense.

  He hadn’t exactly been tortured by his lie, doing what he could to compensate, even forgetting for stretches at a time as they put on charity balls and cut ribbons on after-school clubs. He had let himself believe he really was Gideon Vozaras and Adara legally his wife. Life had been too easy for soul-searching and when the miscarriages had happened, well, things had grown too distant between them to even think of confessing.

  Since Greece, however, the jabs to his conscience had grown more frequent and a lot sharper. Honesty had become a necessary pillar to their relationship, strengthening it as much as the physical intimacy. He respected her too much to be dishonest with her.

  And he loved her too much to risk losing her.

  God, he loved her. Last night when she’d asked him about his feelings, he’d been struck dumb by how inadequate the word was when describing such an expansive emotion. He’d handled it all wrong, immediately falling into a pit of remorse because he was misrepresenting himself. He had to tell her.

  And he would lose her when he did.

  He could stand losing everything else. The inevitable scandal in the papers, the legal ramifications, the hit to his social standing and being dropped from his numerous boards of directors... None of that would be easy to take, but he’d endure it easily if Adara stood by him.

  She wouldn’t. Maybe she would stick by a man who came from a decent background, but once he really opened his can of worms and she saw the extent of his filthy start, she’d be understandably appalled. It would take a miracle for her to overlook it.

  Yet he had no choice, not with Nic breathing down his neck.

  His heart pumped cold, sluggish blood through his arteries as he waited like a man on death row, waited for the sound of footsteps and the call of his name.

  * * *

  Adara didn’t bother trying to go back to bed when she woke at six. Swaddling herself in Gideon’s robe, she went to find him, mind already churning with ways to gloss over her gaffe from last night. If she could have pretended it hadn’t happened at all, she would have, but it was obvious she’d unsettled him. She’d have to say something.

  She found him standing at the window in the living room, barefoot and shirtless, sweatpants slouched low on his hips. His hair was rumpled, his expression both ravaged and distracted when he turned at the sound of her footsteps.

  He didn’t say anything, just looked at her as if the greatest misery gripped him.

  Her heart clutched. This was all her fault. She’d ruined everything.

  “It was never part of our deal, I know that,” she blurted, moving a few steps toward him only to be held off by his raised hand.

  He might as well have planted that hand in the middle of her chest and shoved with all his considerable might, it was such a painfully final gesture of rejection.

  “Our deal...” He ran his hand down his unshaven face. “You don’t even know who you made that deal with, Adara. I shouldn’t have taken it. It was wrong.”

  She gasped, cleaved in two by the implication he regretted their marriage and all that had come of it thus far. He couldn’t mean it. No, this was about his childhood, she told herself, grasping for an explanation for this sudden rebuff. He’d confessed that before they married he’d had a low sense of self-worth. He blamed himself for his friend’s death. He had probably convinced himself he wasn’t worthy of being loved.

  She knew how that felt, but he was so wrong.

  “Gideon—” She moved toward him again.

  He shook his head and walked away from her, standing at an angle so all she could see was his profile filled with self-loathing. A great weight slumped his bare shoulders.

  She couldn’t bear to see him hurting like this. “Gideon, please. I know I overstepped. We don’t have to go into crisis.”

  “It’s not you that’s done anything. You’re perfect. And I wouldn’t do this if your brother hadn’t threatened to do it for me,” he said through gritted teeth, as if he was digging a bullet from his own flesh. “I would never hurt you if I had a choice. You know that, right?”

  “Hurt me how? Which brother? What do you mean?”

  “Nic. He’s threatened to expose me to you, so I have no choice but to tell you myself.”

  His despair was so tangible, her hand unconsciously curled into the lapels of the robe, drawing it tightly over the place in her throat that suddenly felt sliced open and cold. She instinctively knew she didn’t want to hear what he had to say, but forced herself to ask in a barely-there voice, “Tell me what?”

  He solidified into a marble statue, inscrutable and still, his lips barely moving as he said, “That I’m not Gideon Vozaras.”

  After a long second, she reminded herself to blink, but she was still unable to comprehend. Her mind said, Of course you are. He wasn’t making sense.

  “I don’t... What do you mean? Who is then?”

  “No one. It’s a made-up name.”

  “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.

  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 mid
dle 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.