“What name had you agreed on?” It seemed really selfish to Fawn that Bridget had given their baby a different name from the one they had chosen together.
But who was Fawn to say when she wasn’t married or a mother herself? Maybe when the baby boy was born, he had looked more like a Connall than…
“I had wanted him to be named Ronan, after my father,” Declan supplied. “But the hurt I felt at this arbitrary change of name disappeared the moment I saw Connall for the first time.” His expression softened. “He was so small. So beautiful. He had curly blond hair. With the bluest-of-beautiful-blue eyes.”
“Like yours.”
Declan gave her a quick glance before confirming. “Yes, like mine.” He stopped smiling. “I had only been home on leave for a day this time when Bridget asked me to resign from the army, effective immediately, or she was going to divorce me.”
Fawn gasped. “Just like that?”
His expression was grim. “Just like that.”
“She hadn’t given you any hints she was unhappy?”
“None that I’d noticed. She told me she wanted the divorce because she had discovered she hated being married to someone who wasn’t there most of the time.”
“But she knew when she married you that you were a soldier on active duty.”
“Apparently, according to her, I wasn’t attentive enough to her even when I was at home,” Declan drawled. “But even if I had wanted to leave the military, which I didn’t, I’d initially signed on for four years. I couldn’t leave under Discharge of Service because I had already been in for eighteen months, and that loophole only applied if someone changed their mind during the first few months. When I asked my commanding office what I would need to do to be able to leave the army, he said I had to give them twelve months’ notice.”
“How did Bridget take that news?”
He grimaced. “Not well. So not well, in fact, that I received the divorce papers to my barracks in Iraq just a week after I had arrived back from that leave.”
Fawn gasped. “How could she do such a thing?”
He shrugged. “A lot of women find the reality of being married to someone in the military not what they had expected. It all looks and sounds romantic, being married to someone in service to their country. But the long separations and short leaves aren’t conducive to those relationships continuing. Even more so when children come along.”
“But Bridget knew all that when she married you,” Fawn repeated.
“She did,” he agreed. “I telephoned her after I’d received the divorce papers. I thought maybe we could talk the situation through. That was when she told me there was no possibility of that because she’d found someone else. Someone who loved her, wanted to marry her, and be with her all the time.”
Fawn flinched at the callousness of the other woman’s behavior. “Did you know about this other man?”
“Until that moment, not a clue,” he admitted. “We had been together so little during our brief marriage, and those times always started off awkwardly, after such a long separation. Then the two weeks would be over before a rapport could be fully reestablished. But I never even considered the possibility she might be having an affair. I should have done, of course,” he added bitterly. “It happens so often to servicemen who are away for months at a time.”
“She really didn’t give your marriage a chance.”
His nostrils flared. “I very quickly realized that had never been her intention.”
Fawn eyed him incredulously. “What do you mean?”
He nodded. “I got my first inkling of the true situation when I read in the divorce papers that Bridget wanted the house we owned jointly put solely in her name, plus any gifts I had given her, jewelry and a car, would be included in the financial settlement she was demanding for herself. She also wanted sole custody of Connall, with a huge payment every year for child maintenance until he reached the age of twenty-one. There was another clause stating that the original amount for his maintenance would be reassessed once Connall was old enough to attend private school and then university. All that was to remain in place when Bridget remarried.”
“So greedy,” Fawn murmured in disgust.
He sighed. “She wanted everything on her terms. My visitation rights would also be at her discretion. If I didn’t comply, she told me she would fight me for Connall and take everything else I had.”
“Surely she wouldn’t have been successful?”
“My lawyer was pretty sure she wouldn’t, but he also warned me there was never any guarantee in those sorts of divorce cases.” Declan’s nostrils flared. “I wasn’t willing to take the risk of the case coming before a judge who wasn’t sympathetic to my circumstances.”
“But—”
“I was twenty-two years old, Fawn, and my only concern was not to lose access to my son,” he snapped tensely. “Bridget had threatened to drag the case out in court if I didn’t sign the divorce papers as-is. In the meantime, she told me she would ensure Connall grew up hating me.” His jaw tightened. “I mightnot have been able to spend every day and night with my son since he was born, but I loved him. Fiercely.”
Fawn didn’t doubt that for a minute. She knew that when a man like Declan loved, it would be with everything he had. Which was a lot. Bridget was a fool if she hadn’t realized that from the start of their marriage.
