At first it had been a no-brainer. She’d been all business with her proposal, selling him the upside of marriage in her sensible way. The hook had been deliciously baited with everything he’d ever wanted, including a sexy librarian-style wife. Telling her at that point that he was living under a false name would have deep-sixed their deal. Of course, he’d stayed silent.
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.”