As she drove the two-and-a-half-hour journey back to the airport in Portland she mulled over the exchange with her dad. It had gone exactly as she’d expected, even if it hadn’t gone as she’d hoped. But he’d finally told her the truth about what he’d done and, in doing so, had rendered her fight with the Horvaths to be null and void. She had no bone to pick with them. Her article, as Alice had so rightly pointed out last night, had been slanted by her father’s twisted version of events and was now not even worth the kilobytes of space it took up on her hard drive.
* * *
After her flight from Portland to SeaTac, she headed to the parking garage. Before starting her car, she took her laptop and a clean USB drive from her bag and transferred the article she’d written to the drive before wiping it from her computer hard drive and from her cloud storage. Then she drove the two-hour journey home.
By the time she pulled up in front of the house it was dark and she was absolutely shattered. But there was one last thing she had to do today. Despite the late hour, Alice responded to her knock on the guest suite door looking composed and elegant with a string of lustrous pearls around her lined neck, her makeup perfect and not a hair out of place.
“Peyton? Are you all right, my dear? You look worn out. Come in.”
“No, I won’t come in. This won’t take long.” Peyton drew in a deep breath and began to talk. “I...I wanted to apologize for what I’ve done. I was wrong and I...I have something for you.” Peyton held the USB drive out to Alice, who took it automatically. “It’s the article. The only copy. It’s up to you what happens to it.”
“Ah,” Alice uttered, her tone filled with a wealth of understanding. “I see. You’ve been to see your father today?”
Peyton nodded.
“Then,” Alice continued, “I think you should have this back. You will do with it what is right. And, Peyton?”
“Yes?”
Alice frowned for a moment before shaking her head briefly. “No, it’s not my place to say anything. I’ve said and done enough. Sometimes life puts us on a path we didn’t mean to take, but only we can make the decision to take a new course or to attempt to forge on the way we’re going. Just trust your heart, my dear, and you won’t go wrong.”
Nineteen
Ellie had long since gone to bed and Peyton assumed Galen was watching TV upstairs in the lounge off the master bedroom. She went up to her office, closed the door and set her laptop on the desk and started to write.
The sun was rising as she finished proofreading what she’d written. Finally satisfied, she attached the file to an email to her editor and pressed Send. There, it was done. Whatever happened next was out of her control.
She could hear Ellie stirring as she passed the girl’s bedroom, so she knocked gently on the door.
“Good morning,” she said as a sleepy face with tousled hair popped out from the covers. Her daughter, she thought with a sharp tug at her heart. She fought to keep her voice even. “Sleep well?”
“Yes. I missed you last night, though.”
“You were already asleep when I got back.”
“Are you wearing the same clothes you wore yesterday?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah. I haven’t been to bed yet. There was something I had to finish. Now it’s done.”
“Was it really important?”
Peyton nodded. “I’m going to catch a few hours’ sleep now, but I’ll see you after school, okay?”
“Okay. Sweet dreams, Mom.”
Peyton felt her heart shudder in her chest. Mom? Had that been a slip of the tongue, or had Ellie begun to truly see Peyton as her mother? She wanted with all her heart to rush into Ellie’s room, scoop her into her arms and hold her as tight as she could, but she forced herself to blow a kiss instead and close Ellie’s door behind her.
She turned around and came to an abrupt halt when she realized Galen was standing on the landing, waiting for her. As tired as she was, Peyton couldn’t control the swell of desire that rippled through her body at the sight of him. Fresh from the shower, his hair wet but combed, his suit and shirt crisp and clean, he was the personification of the successful businessman. But she knew that beneath the layers of his corporate attire was a complex man with complex needs and desires that equaled her own. How was she ever going to bridge this distance that she’d created between them? Would he ever trust her again?
“So? Did you speak to him?” His tone was not in the least welcoming or friendly.
“I did. And I’ve apologized to your grandmother. Now I want to apologize to you.”
Behind her, Ellie sprang from her bedroom. “Last one down to breakfast is a rotten egg!”
She danced away down the stairs and Galen’s eyes followed her. Peyton looked at him, drinking him in, wondering if this would be one of her last chances to do so.
“We need to talk,” he said abruptly. “But not now. This evening.”
She nodded and watched as he went down the stairs after Ellie, before stumbling to her room and falling into her bed fully clothed.
* * *
Peyton slept heavily, only waking when she heard the front door slam to announce Ellie’s arrival home from school. She shoved her hair out of her face and looked at the clock for confirmation. She hadn’t meant to sleep this late—she’d even missed saying goodbye to Alice, who had flown home at lunchtime. She shucked off her clothes and dived into the shower, thankful that they had Maggie to welcome Ellie home and see to her post-school day needs. There were some distinct advantages to wealth on the scale that the Horvath family enjoyed, she forced herself to admit.
She spent the afternoon with Ellie, marking time until Galen was home from work and they could have that talk. By the time Ellie had gone to bed, he still wasn’t home and Peyton’s stomach was tied up in knots. She couldn’t settle—alternately pacing the downstairs sitting room floor, or opening the refrigerator door for something to eat even though she couldn’t bear the thought of food in her stomach. It was close to ten o’clock when she heard the front door open.
Peyton walked to the main entrance and stopped in her tracks as she saw Galen standing there. He looked exhausted. Every cell in her body urged her to welcome him home, to comfort him—but she’d lost that right, and the realization tore through her with a visceral pain.
“Thanks for waiting,” he said. “I have a lot I need to say to you. I’ll just go put my case in my office and I’ll meet you in the den, okay?”
The den, not the sitting room? It was cozier in there. Was that a sign that this discussion was going to be kinder than she deserved? She didn’t know how she’d handle kind. She certainly didn’t deserve it. She went to the bar and poured a couple of brandies and went to wait.
She didn’t have to wait long. Peyton handed Galen his drink, momentarily basking in the thrill of her fingers brushing against his as he took the glass from her.
“Before you say anything,” she said, determined to preempt him, “I want to apologize for my actions in using Match Made in Marriage and, in particular, marrying you to further my own agenda. I shouldn’t have been so cavalier with you or with Ellie and I’m deeply ashamed that I was. I went to see my father yesterday and I learned some painful, eye-opening truths. They made me realize exactly what I’ve done here, to you and to Ellie. Made me realize, too, that somewhere along the line I’d become as harmful and toxic as my father. I didn’t like having that mirror held up to me. So—” she sucked in a deep breath and rushed the words she’d been practicing all evening “—I’m leaving. I have a new assignment coming up and there’s no point in me staying here when we both know we can’t go on. I won’t contest a divorce. In fact, I’ll begin proceedings if that’s what you prefer. And Ellie...”
Peyton blinked hard against the burning sensation in her eyes. “I won’t fight you for custody of Ellie. You were right. I gave her up before, I made my choic
e then, and I have no right to change my mind now that I’ve been fortunate enough to find her again. I have no right to usurp what you two have together, what her parents wanted for her. I don’t want to unsettle her when she’s already been through so much. With your agreement, however, I would like visitation rights, to see her and get to watch her grow up—” Her throat dried up completely, making further speech impossible.
She took a sip of her drink, letting the brandy burn a path down her throat to the pit of her churning stomach. Galen hadn’t said a word. He just sat there, watching her, his expression inscrutable.
“I’ve already packed and loaded my car. I can’t face saying goodbye to Ellie again, so please don’t expect it of me. In fact, it’s hard enough to say goodbye to you. We had some good times, didn’t we?”
Galen looked pained. “Is this really what you want? To just walk out and pretend we never happened?”
She nodded, her eyes awash with tears. “Please don’t say anything. I just... I...have to go.”
Peyton carefully put her glass down on the coffee table between them and stood. “Thank you again for everything you’ve tried to do for me. And thank you for looking after Ellie. She’s so lucky to have you. I...I hope that one day you find a woman who can give you the family you and Ellie deserve.”
And with that, Peyton fled from the room and down the passageway. She heard Galen’s voice behind her but she didn’t dare stop or look around. She went straight for the front door, down the main steps and into her car. She struggled to put the key in the ignition and saw Galen’s form loom in the front door just as she managed to insert the key and turn it. Her car fired to life and she put it into gear and pressed on the accelerator. And then she was on her way—her child, the man she loved and all her unspoken dreams left behind.
* * *
Galen stood at the entrance to the apartment and checked the address he’d been given, then knocked firmly at the door. He heard sounds from inside, then the scrape of a chain on the door and the turn of a lock. The door opened a few inches and he caught his first glimpse of Peyton’s face in three endless weeks.
“I’ve read your article,” he stated. “Can I come in?”
“What? How? It’s not even in print yet.” She narrowed her eyes.
“It wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“I’m assuming you had some kind of injunction on my work?”
“I did, and I make no apology for that. I protect what’s mine. Peyton, let me in.”
“Ever heard of freedom of the press?”
“I was especially impressed how you showed that even through her grief over my grandfather’s death, and the subsequent deaths of my father and my uncle from the same heart condition, she kept a firm hand on the running of the business. And how she maintained her leadership of the corporation with compassion and a fair hand. It was far more than I expected. No lies. You did good work.”
“Damned with faint praise,” she muttered, but she closed the door a little and he listened as she slid the chain off. “What do you want?”
“To talk. You left without hearing me out.”
“That was three weeks ago,” she pointed out, her tone bitter.
He let his gaze roam over her. She’d lost weight she could ill afford to lose in the past three weeks.
“Peyton, let me inside. I’m not having this discussion on your doorstep.”
“Fine,” she said. “Come in, then.”
“I took the time to think about what you said that night. About you leaving us. And—” he reached into his suit pocket to withdraw the petition to dissolve their marriage “—I received this.”
“I’m glad to see my lawyers are worth their exorbitant fee.”
He looked around the apartment. Spartan with the bare minimum of furnishings. The only thing that he saw that contained an ounce of her personality was a framed picture of her and Ellie on the beach in Hawaii. He remembered that day vividly and remembered taking that photo. He realized that it was probably at that point that he’d begun to fall in love with her. How had he not seen the similarities between her and Ellie then? They were like peas in a pod with their sandy-brown, sun-kissed hair, the tilt of their noses, the clarity in their gray-blue eyes. For that moment in time they’d been happy, a family.
“Nice place,” he commented.
“Don’t lie, Galen. What do you want from me?”
“I wanted to know why you changed the article.”
“I told you the night I left. I found out the truth from my father. I couldn’t send the article as it was anymore. Alice deserved better. You all did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had changed it?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t think it would change anything between us. I’m sorry, Galen. When I researched and wrote the original piece, I believed that what I’d been told was the truth. In fact, growing up, it was my truth. It was all I ever heard from my father, and I saw nothing that made me believe any differently...until I met you.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m back where I was at the beginning. Alone, but wiser.” She gestured to the divorce papers. “Have you come to bring these back? You could have used a courier. You’ve signed them?”
“I haven’t. And I’m not going to.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because I want you back. Come home.”
“What?”
“Come home. I want you back. In my life, in our marriage, in my bed. Ellie wants you back, too. She misses you and she has every right to understand that you’re her birth mother. She needs you in her life.”
“I asked if I could see her sometimes—”
“No. Not sometimes. She deserves better than that. You both do. We all do. Come home. You say you changed the article because you learned the truth, but you never stopped to discover the rest of the truth about us. I love you, Peyton, even with all your prickles and barbs and the walls you constantly keep trying to raise between us—and I believe you love me, too. I’m happy to wait for when you’re ready to admit it. I can wait until my dying day if I have to, but I cannot wait another moment to have you back in my life. Unless, of course, you can convince me you don’t love me, or can’t love me. If that’s the case, then I’ll turn around and walk out your door, but I believe that somewhere in our crazy, mixed-up marriage we both did something right, that we found something together that we can build on and grow to last a lifetime.
“Please, Peyton, say you’ll come home to us. To me.”
“I don’t know, Galen. I’m terrified to give in to love. I saw what it did to my father. How his love for my mom drove him to do stupid things like stealing and lying. He’s a broken man. He didn’t even want to see a photo of Ellie when I went to see him. How can I be what she needs when I don’t even know how to be a good parent?
“All these years, ever since I gave her up for adoption, I’ve strived not to love, not to let go of my control over my life. Being with you and Ellie was tough at first because I kept fighting my feelings for both of you. But then I started to relax. I let go of those reins and I allowed myself to begin to love Ellie. Finding out she was really my daughter was terrifying to me, while being the greatest gift of my life at the same time. I wanted to grab her and run, but I knew I couldn’t do that—to her or to you. I knew being with you had started to strip away the barriers and safeguards that I had built up ever since childhood. It frightened me.”
She took a deep breath and then looked directly into his eyes. “I love you, Galen. I didn’t want to. I fought against it. I even used sex to try and distract myself from it.”
“Well, you can feel free to distract yourself anytime you want to. Just saying.”
She laughed at his attempt to lighten the seriousness of the moment. It was a sound of pure joy.
“Thanks,” she said when she got her laughter unde
r control. “I’ll take that under consideration.”
“So you’re okay if I do this?” He held the divorce papers in front of him and tore them in half.
“Yeah, I’m okay if you do that.”
Galen tossed the scraps onto a nearby chair. “And you’re okay if I do this?”
He stepped closer, took her in his arms, bent his head and took her lips with his. She remained still for a split second, making him wonder if he’d taken a step too far, too soon, but then she softened in his arms, her mouth responding beneath his. Their lips meshing, tongues grazing. He forced himself to pull back, to allow her to make the next move, and prayed that it would be the right one for them both.
“I’m very okay if you do that,” she answered breathlessly. “In fact, I’m okay if you do that again, just to be sure.”
Ever a gentleman, Galen did, and when he broke off the embrace he looked deeply into her eyes.
“Peyton, will you come home with me? Will you be my wife in every sense? Be Ellie’s mom? Be our lives?”
“I will. These past few weeks have been hell. I can’t seem to function without you and I don’t want to anymore.”
He allowed himself a smile. His proud, fiercely independent wife had just admitted more than she probably realized. “Then let’s go home.”
“Yes, I’d like that. For good this time.”
“Forever.”
* * *
Don’t miss a single story
in the Married at First Sight series
by USA TODAY bestselling author
Yvonne Lindsay
Tangled Vows
Inconveniently Wed
Vengeful Vows (Marriage At First Sight Book 3) Page 16
