More than a Convenient Marriage?

by Dani Collins

  “You look like you’re going to fall down. Sit.” He half rose, used one foot to angle a chair for her and maneuvered her into it.

  Adara’s legs gave out as she sank into the chair. She buried her face in her hands and frantically reminded herself that her emotions were pushed to the very edge of endurance right now. The bigger picture here wasn’t that he was stealing an opportunity to cuddle a baby because she couldn’t give him one. He was getting to know their niece.

  Longing rose in her as she made that connection and a different, more tender kind of emotion filled her, sweet with the layers of reunion with family that had driven her here in the first place. She lifted her head and held out her hands.

  “Can I hold her? Please?”

  “Of course.” He transferred the baby’s weight into her arms and Adara nearly dissolved into a puddle of maternal love. “Her name’s Evie. Adara, I wasn’t—”

  She shook her head.

  His hand came up to the side of her neck, trapping her hair against her nape as he forced her to look at him and said in a fierce whisper. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

  “I know. It’s okay,” she assured him, rubbing her cheek on the hardness of his wrist. “I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. I’m not mad.”

  He cupped the side of her face and leaned across to kiss her once, hard. “You scared me. I thought I was going to lose you.”

  She had to consciously remember to hold on to the baby while her limbs softened and her heart shifted in her chest. Every time she thought they didn’t have a hope in the world of making something of their marriage, he said something like that and completely enchanted her.

  Voices made them break their intense stare into each other’s eyes.

  “I’m not being a grouch,” her brother growled as he emerged from the house carrying his wife in the cradle of his arms. “But you were discharged early because you promised to keep it elevated, so I think you should do that, don’t you?”

  Gideon moved to pull out a chair so Rowan could slide down onto it, then he offered a hand to Nico. “Gideon.”

  “Nic,” her brother said, completely pulled together after his tearful reassurances to her a few minutes ago. He’d never stopped caring or worrying about her all this time, just as she had for him. She was loved, was worth loving. It was a startling adjustment, like learning she wasn’t an ugly duckling but a full-fledged swan.

  Could Gideon see the change in her?

  He wore a mask of subtle tension as he took his seat. No one else seemed to notice. Nic opened wine and Rowan stole the empty bottle of milk from her baby and handed Adara a burping towel.

  When Nic set a glass of sparkling white before her, he smiled indulgently at Adara’s attempt to pat a belch out of his daughter. “Looks like you know what you’re doing. Do you have children?”

  The canyon of inadequacy yawned before her, but Gideon squeezed her thigh and spoke with a neutrality she couldn’t manage. “We’ve tried,” he said simply. “It hasn’t worked out.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nic said with a grimace that spoke of a man wanting to kick himself for saying the wrong thing, but he couldn’t have known.

  “Not being able to get pregnant seemed like a horrible tragedy for me at first,” Rowan said conversationally. “But we wouldn’t have Evie otherwise and we can’t imagine life without her. We’re so smitten, we’re like the only two people to ever have a baby, aren’t we, Nic?”

  “It’s true,” he admitted unabashedly while he settled into his own chair and absently eased Rowan’s bandaged leg to balance across his thigh. His hand caressed her ankle, their body language speaking of utter relaxation and familiarity with each other. “I don’t know what I did to deserve such good fortune.”

  The fierce look of deep love he gave his wife and the tender way she returned it was almost too intimate to witness, but Adara found herself holding her breath as yearning filled her. I want that, she thought, but even though she felt Gideon’s fingers circle tenderly on the inside of her knee, she didn’t imagine for a minute she’d get it.

  * * *

  The penthouse seemed cavernous and chilly when they returned from Greece. It was after midnight when they arrived after what had been a long, quiet flight.

  They’d been through a lot since meeting up at the end of her brother’s driveway, so she supposed it was natural they’d both withdraw a bit to digest it all, but the hint of tension and reserve Gideon was wearing bothered her.

  They’d made love in the middle of the night and again first thing this morning. It had been wonderful as ever, but afterward, as they’d soaped each other in the shower, things had taken this turn into a brick wall.

  Unable to get Gideon’s look of paternal tenderness toward Evie out of her mind, she’d pointed out how her brother and his wife made adoption look like the most natural thing in the world.

  “They do,” he had agreed without inflection.

  “It’s something to think about,” she had pressed ever so lightly. “Isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps.”

  So noncommittal.

  Adara chewed her lip, completely open to the idea herself, but that meant staying married. Forever. To a man who didn’t appear as enthused by the idea of children as she was.

  He was such an enigma. Returning to New York was a cold plunge into her old marriage to a workaholic who liked his space and only communicated when he had to—if the scene she entered when she left the powder room was anything to go by.

  Paul, their chauffeur, was exiting Adara’s room where he would have left her luggage. Gideon was coming back to the living room from his own room, where he would have left his own. He swept his thumb across his smart phone as he gave Paul a rough schedule for the next few days, asking her absently, “Are you leaving early for the office with me tomorrow or do you want Paul to come back for you?”

  Back to separate lives that revolved around their careers. She looked at her empty arms as she crossed them over her aching chest. “How early is early?”

  He grimaced at the clock. “Six? The time change will have me up anyway.”

  Her too. “That’s fine,” she said, then thought, Welcome back, Mrs. Complacent. She’d obviously forgotten her spine back in Greece.

  Paul wished them a good night and left. Gideon came across to set the security panel, then looked down at her as she stifled a yawn.

  “Straight to bed?” he asked.

  A bristling sensation lifted in the region between her shoulder blades and the back of her neck. His question was one of the shorthand signals they’d developed in this detached marriage of theirs. He was letting her off the hook for sex.

  She was exhausted. It shouldn’t bother her, but it left her feeling abandoned and without hope for their marriage, a family, or a love like her brother had found.

  “Yes,” she said quietly, pulling on her cloak of polite endurance to hide how hurt she was. “It’s been a long day and tomorrow will be longer.” Smooth out all those rough edges, Adara. Make it seem as if you don’t have a heart to break.

  “Your place or mine?”

  “I—what?” She blinked at him, trying to quell the flutter of sensual excitement that woke in her blood. A little embarrassed by how quickly she could bloom back to life, she murmured, “I’m genuinely tired.”

  Nevertheless, she seesawed with indecision, longing for the closeness she experienced in his arms, but fearful of how neglected she felt when he drew himself apart from her the way he had since meeting her brother.

  “I’m freaking exhausted,” he admitted with heartfelt weariness, “but we’re not going back to separate bedrooms. Mine,” he said decisively, catching her hand to lead her there. “Don’t bother moving your clothes. The farther away the better.”

  “Gideon.” She chuckled a little as sh
e stumbled behind him, then was distracted by entering a room she’d rarely peeked into. It was scrupulously clean and not just from the housekeeper doing a thorough job in their absence. Gideon was a tidy man. Living on boats forged that habit, he’d told her once. He didn’t like clutter. The decorator’s palette for the walls was unmarred by paintings or photos. The night table held only a phone dock that doubled as a bedside light.

  He stepped into his closet to set his shoes on a shelf.

  “You need to find a few days in the next week to come to Valparaiso with me,” he told her as he emerged, drawing his belt free as he spoke, then hanging it precisely alongside the rest.

  “You’ve become very dictatorial in the last few days, do you realize that?” She wasn’t sure where the cheeky comment came from, but it blurted out even as her voice tightened along with her blood vessels. He was undressing, shedding his shirt without reserve to expose tanned planes of muscle.

  “You used to be a pushover. I didn’t have to try very hard to get what I wanted. Now I do.”

  “Does that bother you?” A pang in her lip made her realize she was biting down as she awaited his answer, habitually fearful of masculine disapproval.

  He moved toward her, pants open to expose the narrow line of hair descending from his navel, feet bare, predatory with his tight abs and naked chest and sober expression. His nipples were pulled into tight points by the air-conditioned room.

  She tensed against a rush of uncertainty and sexual admiration.

  “You were thinking of leaving me because you weren’t getting what you wanted. That bothers me very much.” He cupped the side of her neck and his thumb pressed under her chin, gently tilting her face up. “We can’t meet each other’s needs if we don’t say what they are, so I’m pleased you’re telling me what you want. I’m telling you what I want. I like feeling you next to me and waking up to make love to you in the middle of the night. I need to travel and when I do, I want you to know that no one is in my bed except you.”

  So he hadn’t completely left her, this man who so easily found his way to the deepest recesses of her soul. She swept her lashes down to hide how moved she was.

  “What do you want, Adara?”

  She practically liquefied into one of those women she often saw following him with limpid eyes and undisguised yearning. Her heart was so scarred and scared she could barely acknowledge what she wanted, let alone articulate it, but she managed to say huskily, “You.”

  Instantly it felt like too huge an admission, like she was confessing to a deeper need than the sexual ones he had. Unable to bear being so completely defenseless against him, she splayed her hands on his chest and tried to lessen the depth of the admission by saying in a stilted murmur, “I’m not a sexual person, but I want to be in bed with you all the time.”

  Something inscrutable flashed in his expression, quickly masked by excitement as his chest expanded under her touch with a big inhale.

  Adara hid her sensitivity in a sexual advance she couldn’t have made a week ago, but their constant lovemaking over the last few days had given her the confidence to lean forward and tease his nipple with her mouth.

  He grasped a handful of her hair while his erection grew against her stomach, making her smile as she flicked with her tongue and made him groan with approval.

  “I thought you wanted to sleep,” he said through his teeth.

  “We will,” she said, scraping her teeth across to his other nipple. “In a bit.”

  * * *

  Gideon checked inside the velvet clamshell box, giving the ring one more critical look. The cushion-cut pink diamond was framed on either side by half-carat white diamonds, two on each side. Like Adara, the arrangement had a quiet elegance that wasn’t ostentatious or flashy. It was a rare find that held the eye a long time once you noticed it.

  When he’d seen it, he’d thought, Sunrise. A new beginning. Then his sailor’s superstition had kicked in. Red sky in morning...

  No, there was no warning here. They were proceeding into the horizon on smooth waters, making this ring the perfect marker for their anniversary in a few weeks. He had considered waiting until the actual date to give this to her, but they had a gala tonight and it seemed the right time for Adara to show off a trinket from her husband.

  A good time for him to show her off, he admitted to himself with a self-deprecating smirk. A funny pang hit him in the middle of his chest as he tucked the box into the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. Adara was the last person to walk around bragging, Look what my husband gave me. He was the one who’d coaxed her into accepting this invitation so he’d have an excuse to give her this ring and seal a deal they hadn’t quite closed.

  Moving into the empty living room to wait for her, he poured himself a drink and gazed at the lights bobbing across the harbor, disturbed by how insecure he still felt about their future.

  If sex was an indicator, he had nothing to worry about. Horny as he may have been as a teenager, he hadn’t had access to a female body often enough to be this sexually active. Since Greece, however, he and Adara had been living the sort of second honeymoon every man fantasized about. There shouldn’t be an ounce of need left in him, but as he dwelled on waking this morning to Adara’s curves melded into his side, and the welcoming moan she’d released when he’d slipped inside her, a flame of sexual hunger came alive in him again.

  And it was so good. Not just the quantity, but the quality. Her old inhibitions were gone. She was outspoken enough that he could unleash himself with the knowledge that she’d slow him down if she didn’t like it. The sex was a dream come true.

  So he didn’t understand this agitation in himself, especially when she’d become more open in other ways, making him feel even more special and privileged to wear the label “Adara’s husband.”

  Like yesterday, when he’d swung by her office on impulse at lunch, catching her in a meeting. Through the glass wall he’d watched her hold court, standing at the head of a board table surrounded by men and women in suits, all glued to her words. He’d understood their fascination, hypnotized himself by the glow of—hell, it looked like happiness, damn it.

  Adara had paused in sketching diagrams on a smart board to point the tip of her electronic pen at each person as she went round the table, soliciting comments, earning nods and building consensus.

  Gideon had stood there transfixed, proud, awed, full of admiration while remaining male enough to enjoy the way her shirt buttons strained across her breasts, just a shade tighter than she used to wear them.

  Maybe that wasn’t entirely voluntary. She’d said something the other day about eating too much and being too sedentary while they were away. He’d dismissed the comment because who gained ten pounds in less than a week? And even if she had, he was quite happy with her curves, thanks. Studying that ready-to-pop button, he’d been torn between intense desire and the sheer pleasure of watching her work.

  She’d turned her head and a flush of pleasure had lit up her expression. She’d bit back a smile, mouthing something about “my husband” to the crowd that turned their heads to the window.

  He’d been busted and had to meet a pile of names he’d never remember. It had been worth it. Ten minutes later they had locked lips in the descending elevator and wound up doing a “snap inspection” on the family suite at one of her hotels, skipping lunch altogether.

  It was all good. She’d even let him listen in to her calls to her younger brothers when she’d broken the news about looking up Nic. A few beseeching, helpless looks at Gideon while she walked through some difficult memories had kept him close, rubbing her back as she choked through the conversations, but afterward there’d been a level of peace in her that told him she was healing old wounds that had festered for years.

  Tell her your secret, a voice whispered insidiously in his head.

  He slipped his h
and into his pocket to close his fist on the velvet box. No. It wasn’t necessary. They were doing great. Her brother was on the other side of the world, not questioning where Adara’s husband had come from. Gideon had dodged any curiosity from that quarter and there was no use rocking the boat.

  Even though guilt ate him alive at the way Adara couldn’t seem to get enough of watching her niece over the webcam. But what could he say? Yes, let’s allow strangers to dig into my past so we can adopt a baby?

  She hadn’t brought it up again, but she didn’t need to. It was obvious what she wanted and he couldn’t do it.

  Assaulted by a fresh bout of shame and remorse, he ducked it by glancing at his watch. It wasn’t like Adara to keep him waiting.

  Moving to her room where the bulk of her clothes and toiletries remained while their architect prepared renovation plans for a new master bedroom, Gideon was aware of a fleeting apprehension. He rarely checked in on her while she was getting ready. There was something about watching a woman put on makeup and dress to go out that triggered old feelings of being abandoned and helpless. He shook off the dark mood that seemed so determined to overtake him tonight, and knocked before letting himself into her room.

  She was a vision of sexy dishevelment in a blue gown not yet zipped up her back. Her hair had ruffled from its valentine frame around her face, curling in soft scrolls around her bare shoulders while her flawless makeup gave her lips a sensual glow and added dramatic impact to the distempered expression in her eyes.

  “Problem?” he asked, noting the splashes of color where gowns had been discarded over the chair, the bed, and even the floor. Perhaps they should rethink the room sharing. This kind of disorder could wear on him.

  “I told you we were eating out too much. I look like a lumpy sausage in every one of these. This one won’t even close and my makeup doesn’t match...” She was whipping herself into quite a state.

  He bit back a smile, aware that he’d be on the end of a swift set down if he revealed how cute and refreshing he thought this tantrum was.