Because everyone he had ever loved—or even viewed with fondness—had abandoned him.
His mother.
His twin, no matter how unwillingly.
Rafe.
The list was agonizingly short.
Tenderness ballooned in her bosom.
Tristan did not expect her affection or loyalty because he had shockingly little experience with those emotions.
She shut the door to her suite and turned to face her father.
“I’m not leaving with ye, Papa,” she said with quiet firmness.
“Pardon?”
“I will be staying with my husband.”
“With Kendall?” Outrage tinged his voice.
“Aye,” she replied with a thread of irony. “He be the only husband I claim.”
“But . . . why? Wouldn’t ye prefer to be with your family?”
Gracious.
How to answer that?
Her father misread her hesitation.
“He has threatened ye with violence if ye disobey him.” Hadley’s brows gathered like a thundercloud. He turned for the door. “That bastard—”
“Papa!” Isolde caught his elbow. “Tristan hasneverthreatened me in any way.”
“Tristan?!”
“Aye. That is his Christian name.”
“Ye dinnae call him Kendall?”
“Not anymore.”
Her father’s frown deepened, and he studied her for a long moment, as if trying to make sense of her mood.
Comprehension dawned.
He grimaced. “Izzy, ye must understand . . . sometimes the act of . . . of marriage—” Here he rolled a hand, ruddy color climbing his throat. “—can cloud one’s thinking. It can make ye feel a connection that simply isn’t there.”
Well.
That was certainly . . . interesting.
Her father thought she was addled from the ardor of Tristan’s husbandly attentions. In the annals of uncomfortable conversations between father and daughter, this topic had to rank among the most fraught.
Isolde breathed through the heat flooding her own cheeks.
