It turned out that most of the post-nuptial agreement—which sounded like a stupid name to Helena, but was apparently what the thing was called—was pretty boring. Flynn and Henry had already been through the document and updated the original to reflect the slight change in wedding plans. Helena found some comfort in knowing that these were things that Thea had agreed to, even agreed with. It made nodding along as Henry talked her through it much easier.
Their finances, the business; that was all straightforward in the end—the lengthy negotiations between Thea, Flynn and their fathers had already hammered all that out. So the contract mostly came down to the relationship between her and Flynn.
That part, at least, she understood.
‘So, you’re both still happy to live in the London townhouse we arranged, right?’ Henry asked, and Helena nodded. ‘Great. Next up, charitable and social obligations.’
Helena sighed. She really should have just stayed in bed. Flynn would have come and found her eventually.
When they reached the part about sexual relations, Flynn stared at the ceiling and Helena couldn’t help but laugh.
‘I’m guessing we can strike the part about negotiating the initiation of sexual relations in one year’s time?’ Henry asked, clearly unable to hide the amusement in his voice.
‘Yeah, I think that ship has pretty much sailed,’ Helena said with a grin.
‘It was a stupid clause anyway,’ Flynn added, his gaze still focused on the ceiling.
‘Okay, then. In that case, the next bit is the declarations,’ Henry said, scrolling down to the next page.
‘Like the sickness and health part of the wedding?’ Helena asked.
‘Not exactly. Basically, we just need you to sign this section to say that you’ve never been married before, are not in a partnership with anyone else at this time, that you don’t have any children by a previous relationship—things that would affect your finances or inheritances mostly.’
Helena’s whole body trembled as if she had no control over it. She couldn’t speak—every word she thought of stuck in her throat. Her skin burned as if she’d stepped too close to the fire—and maybe she had, in a way.
She’d known last night that she had to tell Flynn about her daughter, but not like this. Not now and not here, not with Henry listening in.
Not when everything was finally going so well.
‘Helena? What’s wrong?’ Flynn was at her side now—when had he even moved? He took her hand, squeezing it gently, and Helena wanted nothing more than to cling on to it and never, ever let go. She’d come so close to getting everything she’d ever wanted.
And now one mistake from eight years ago was going to wreck it all.
In her mind, the film of the night she’d told Thea ran over and over. Her sister’s tears, followed by her father’s shouts. The ugly accusations, the hatred. And then the pity in Isabella’s expression when she’d arrived, as she always did, to support Thomas above all else. Not just pity, though. A sense of inevitability, as if they’d all known Helena would screw up irrevocably in the end; it had only been a matter of time.
Thea was the only one who’d listened, who’d understood what had really happened that night. And their father had just blamed her for letting Helena out that night at all. As if Thea were more to blame than Helena, and Helena more to blame than the boys who—she stopped that thought. She couldn’t relive that. Not now.
Instead, she remembered the coldness in her father’s eyes as he’d told her they would fix this. That she would do exactly as she was told. He and Isabella had a plan and she would follow it to the letter. And, if she did, she could come home and live her normal life again. Afterwards.
As if she could ever be the same, after.
‘Do you want me to call for someone?’ Henry asked, sounding concerned. ‘Get some water or something?’
‘Yeah, there should be someone in the kitchen.’ Flynn placed the back of his hand against her forehead. ‘Helena, talk to me. What is it? Are you feeling faint? I should have got you a proper breakfast. Let me ask Henry to—’
‘No.’ She couldn’t take it any more. She couldn’t let him carry on being so kind to her, not when he didn’t know the truth. ‘I don’t need anything. But I can’t...’ She stumbled over the words as she tried to get to her feet. Her legs felt too weak to support her body, but she forced them to move, to take her away from here. ‘I can’t sign this.’
And then she ran, the image of Flynn’s horrified face imprinted on her memory.
* * *
Okay, this...? This was not the plan.
Flynn stared after his wife as Helena stumbled out of the study and raced up the stairs. From the doorway, he could just about see the way she clung to the banister as she climbed, that stupid satin nightgown flapping around her legs.
‘What happened?’ Henry asked, striding across the hallway with a glass of water in his hand.
‘I have no idea,’ Flynn replied, gaze still locked on the now empty staircase. ‘But I’m going to find out. Stay here.’
They had an agreement, he fumed silently as he took the stairs two at a time. They’d talked about everything, he’d opened up to her in ways he’d never imagined he’d be able to with anyone. He’d married her! He’d given her that blasted ring and taken her to bed. He’d let her in, let himself hope, believe that he could have the future he’d dreamed of. That he was enough for her...and now? Now she said she couldn’t sign.
No. That wasn’t the way this plan went at all.
He thumped his fist against the wood of the bridal suite door, but didn’t wait for her to tell him to come in. She had to know he’d follow, had to know he’d need an explanation.
‘Flynn, I...I’m sorry.’ She looked so small curled up on the bed, her knees under her chin and her arms wrapped tightly around them.
‘Then come downstairs and sign the agreement.’ Maybe this was just last-minute nerves. Some fear of paperwork he didn’t fully understand.
But Helena shook her head. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t want apologies. I want reasons.’ He hadn’t even moved from the doorway, he realised. There was no point staying if she wouldn’t explain. He wasn’t sure, but he thought his grip on the door handle might be the only thing keeping him upright while he waited for her answer.
‘I can’t sign it because it’s not true. The declarations.’
Flynn blinked at her, his mind foggy with incomprehension. ‘What? You’re already married?’ She shook her head. ‘You’re in love with someone else?’ Both sisters? Surely that was too cruel a joke for the universe to play, even on him.
‘No. Not that.’ Her words came out almost as a croak. As if her throat didn’t want to let them leave.
And then her meaning sank in, and he wished he’d never heard her at all.
‘You have a child.’ There was no emotion in his voice, he realised, because it was all swirling inside him. Every possible negative feeling—betrayal, horror, pain and everything in between—ran through his blood, his muscles, his organs, causing them to seize up and scream in silent pain. ‘Where is it now?’
It. He’d married the woman and he didn’t know she had a child—and even now he could only call the poor thing ‘it’ because he didn’t know enough to know if it was a girl or a boy.
‘She was adopted,’ Helena whispered, and every single drop of those awful emotions prepared to come tumbling out of him.
‘You gave her away.’ He couldn’t look away, couldn’t focus on anything except her face. He’d thought that she’d let him in, thought they were planning a life together. When all the time she’d been holding back, keeping him at a distance as he’d tumbled headfirst into love with her. His plan wasn’t hers, and never would be.
‘It was a mistake. I was sixteen and I wa
s so, so scared.’ Her words were tumbling out over each other, but he was barely listening. He was still trying to make sense of this horrific reality he now found himself in. One where the woman he loved was a woman who lied, who left people behind. And to think he’d believed her when she’d promised she’d stay, that they could have a life together. He was an idiot. After thirty long years, didn’t he know better than to believe any person who said they’d take him into their heart, love him and keep him as their own?
‘When I told Thea—’
‘Thea knew.’ Of course Thea knew. Who else would Helena turn to? And why would Thea mention it to him? She could never have imagined that Helena would jump into her place so fast. No, he couldn’t blame Thea for this one. Only Helena. ‘Who else?’
‘Um...my father. And Isabella.’ Not his father, of course. If Ezekiel had known, this would have come up sooner, the moment the old man had realised they were married. He’d have rubbed this in just to cause Flynn pain.
But Thomas. Thomas had known and he’d stood there and nodded when Flynn explained that he and Helena were getting married. Had laughed when Ezekiel talked about Flynn getting Helena pregnant—and had never mentioned that he wouldn’t be the first.
‘They sent me away,’ Helena said, those bluebell eyes still wide but somehow no longer so innocent. ‘As soon as they found out they got me out of town, somewhere I couldn’t be a scandal or a bother.’ She sounded so broken, so distraught, he almost wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. But he knew that he was still seeing her as his Helena. And she wasn’t any more. She was a stranger, one who’d lied about who she was, what she could be to him. What he could be to her.
If she’d truly loved him, if she’d really wanted their future together, she’d have told him about her baby. And if she’d told him before he fell...at least he could have discussed it rationally, seen if there was still a chance for them to make this work. Maybe not with all the hearts, flowers and romance they’d hoped for, but a pragmatic business marriage as originally planned.
But she’d let him fall in love with her then torn his heart out by telling him that his whole image of her was a lie. That she wasn’t the person she’d promised to be.
He’d told her everything—how it had felt, growing up as the spare part in the Ashton household, knowing he wasn’t wanted or needed any more, once his parents had Zeke. She must have known exactly what it would do to him, knowing that she’d done that to her own child—given it away to an uncertain fate. And she’d kept it from him until it was too late.
Until he loved her.
It was calculated, cruel, and the Helena he’d fallen for would never have done it. That was what he needed to remember. The Helena he loved didn’t really exist. Instead, all he was left with was a wife he barely knew and would never, ever understand.
‘This is what your father meant, isn’t it? When he said you were making up for past mistakes.’ Flynn lowered his head and laughed, all bitterness and no humour. ‘What? You think marrying one poor adopted boy makes up for the girl you gave away without a second thought?’
‘No! Of course I don’t. You don’t understand—’
‘You’re right—I don’t understand!’ Flynn roared, tearing himself away from the door as he strode across to the bed when she sat. He wouldn’t touch her—couldn’t bring himself to—but he wasn’t going to keep a safe distance either. Helena scooted up to cower against the headboard anyway. Another sign she’d never known him at all.
‘I don’t understand how you could have sat there at lunch yesterday and listened to me telling you how I wasn’t wanted—by my birth parents or my adoptive ones—and promised to make a better life, a better family with me, when all along you were no better than any of them.’ The shame of the secrets and feelings he’d admitted to this woman burned. Maybe she hadn’t been laughing at him all along, but she’d still let him spill his guts while she gave up nothing at all.
She’d still lied to him about the person she was.
‘I thought I knew you. Thought we knew each other,’ he said. ‘But the woman I bought that ring for could never give away her own child.’
Helena’s face paled, spots of bright red blazing on her cheekbones in contrast. Tearing her engagement ring from her finger, she threw it across the bed towards him. It clattered off the edge and on to the floorboards, but he made no move to retrieve it. What would he do with such a thing now, anyway?
‘You thought you knew me? All because you could pick out a ring I liked?’ Helena hurled the words at him as if he were in the wrong. As if she had any grounds to argue at all.
‘Because I thought we’d been open and honest with each other!’ Gripping the end of the bed frame, Flynn tried not to remember how close he’d felt to her, here in this very room.
Helena shook her head, her blonde hair curling wildly in the air. ‘No. You thought you’d found someone who fitted your plan, your schedule. You thought you could make me the wife you needed. You married me for my name, remember, nothing more. I was just your convenient stand-in bride.’
‘You know that’s not all you were.’ If that were so, why would it hurt so much now to know the truth?
‘Wasn’t I? Then why were you so desperate for me to sign my life away to you?’
‘I wanted a future with you! A family!’ He was shouting, he knew it, knew everyone in the house must be able to hear them. He didn’t care. Not any more.
‘But you never asked me if that was what I wanted!’ Helena yelled back, up on her knees now as she faced him. ‘You say you wanted a family, but all you really wanted was an heir. Something to legitimise you as a real Ashton, to give you full control of the company. Why else were you so set on marrying Thea? And why did you marry me with no contract, no agreement?’
‘Don’t you dare.’ Cold fury ran through him like a wave. ‘You think you can tell me why I wanted a child of my own? You, of all people? Who had that and just gave it away. Gave her away. You called her a mistake.’
Helena reared back as if he’d slapped her. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, I think I do,’ Flynn answered. ‘I imagine it went something like this. Poor little rich girl, doesn’t get as much notice as her clever older sister. Wants Daddy to pay her some attention too so she starts acting out—the usual teenage rebellion. Dates inappropriate boys, stays out partying—all the classics. But one day she goes too far, realises she’s pregnant. Maybe you didn’t even know who the father was.’ She flinched at that, and he knew he’d hit a nerve. Part of him took a vicious pleasure in the fact. ‘So you go crying to big sis, make her tell Daddy for you. And Daddy fixes everything, right? Sends you away to have the baby then palms it off to somebody else—no harm, no foul. No damage done—except to that poor kid’s life.’
She jerked back at his words, as if they caused physical pain.
Good. He wanted her to hurt. Wanted her to feel the same pain he did.
If he couldn’t love her any more, he had to break things between them altogether. Their marriage would never be anything more than a convenience, from this day forward.
It was all over for them now. It had to be.
* * *
Helena stared at him, horrified. How could this be the same man she’d shared this bed with the night before? Or even the man she’d worshipped at fourteen for his kind understanding? This Flynn was someone she barely recognised. ‘You’re right. You don’t know me at all.’ No more than she knew him, apparently.
‘On the contrary, I believe I’ve finally got a glimpse of the real you.’ Flynn’s mouth twisted in a cruel sneer. ‘And the sight sickens me.’
He didn’t know, Helena told herself. He didn’t know the truth of what had happened to her that night. But he wouldn’t listen either. Just like her father never had.
She couldn’t forgi
ve him for that.
‘Trust me, the feeling is mutual.’
‘What did you expect, Helena?’ Flynn threw his arms wide, the injured party, hurt and wounded at her hand. And he was, she knew. She should have told him the truth from the start, let him make his own choice with all the information. But things had moved so fast, and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him so soon after he’d finally become hers. She’d wanted them to build a relationship that could survive the truth.
Great job, Helena.
‘Did you think you could keep it a secret forever?’ Flynn asked. ‘Or at least make me fall so in love with you that it wouldn’t matter what horrific things you’d done in your past?’
She felt the colour rise in her cheeks, warm and humiliating. That was, of course, exactly what she’d thought. Or hoped, at least.
She should have known better. People didn’t ever really forgive, not when it mattered. Even taking her sister’s place and marrying Flynn hadn’t been enough for their father to forgive either of them. Why should Flynn be any different?
‘I thought you’d respect me enough to listen to me when I told you. To hear my reasons and try to understand.’
‘You want me to listen? I’ll listen. Tell me, Helena. How did it feel to give away your own child to a total stranger? Did you feel bad for a whole day, or just until your daddy gave you your credit card back so you could go shoe shopping?’
He didn’t have a clue. Didn’t know her or care for her enough to give her the benefit of the doubt, even.
‘It’s all black and white to you, isn’t it?’ she said, staring at the man she’d thought she loved. ‘On-plan or off-schedule. Right or wrong. Us and them. It doesn’t occur to you that people might have reasons or beliefs or feelings different to yours, does it? You can’t imagine any scenario in which I might have done the right thing.’
‘The right thing? How can giving away a child ever be the right thing?’ Flynn stood gripping the frame at the foot of the bed, his arms stretched out to the sides as he loomed over her. Helena swallowed, her mouth dry as the image of him there, so much stronger and more powerful than her, took her back to another awful day. The worst of her life from the day her mother died until now.
His Very Convenient Bride Page 13