Connor pushed back from the table abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. For a moment, I thought he might flee the room, but instead he stood frozen, hands braced against the polished mahogany, head bowed.
"The text messages," he said, voice hollow. "My mother kept texting me, insisting on this dinner. She never cared about family meals before. And my father asking all those questions about my job, my schooling..." He looked up, eyes haunted. "They were setting me up."
I nodded, wishing I could spare him this pain. "The man at the hotel—Harris—was there to collect what he'd paid for."
Connor sank back into his chair, his movements unnaturally stiff. "I was merchandise," he said, his voice breaking on the final word. "Something to be sold when they needed money."
The raw anguish in his voice made my chest tighten painfully. I'd faced down corporate raiders and hostile takeovers without flinching, but Connor's pain cut through my defenses in a way nothing else had since the accident.
"Yes," I said, not insulting him with false comfort. "To them, you were."
Connor's hands began to shake, first subtly, then visibly enough that he clasped them together on the table, knuckles white with the effort of maintaining control.
"All those years," he said, staring at nothing. "All those birthdays I spent waiting for a call that never came. The holidays where I made excuses for why they couldn't make it. The tuition bills I paid myself because they said they couldn't afford to help." He laughed bitterly. "And all along, I was just an asset they were saving for a rainy day."
I couldn't bear the distance between us any longer. Without conscious thought, I wheeled myself around the table to his side, reaching across to take his trembling hands in mine. His skin was cold, fingers still rigid with shock.
"You were never merchandise to me," I said firmly, my thumb tracing small circles on his palm. The gesture was instinctive, comforting, something I couldn't recall doing for anyone else.
Connor looked up, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "Why did you marry me, Julian? Really?" The question was raw, vulnerable in a way that made my throat tighten. "Was it pity? Some twisted sense of rescue?"
"No," I replied, the single syllable carrying more weight than I'd intended. "At first it was... practical, protection for you and something unexpected for me." I hesitated, unused to such honesty. "But it's become more than that."
"What has it become?" he pressed, his fingers curling around mine.
The half-eaten meal grew cold between us. The antique clock on the mantel ticked steadily, marking seconds that stretched into a silence filled with things I wasn't ready to name.
"I don't know," I admitted finally, the words costing me more than million-dollar decisions in boardrooms ever had. "But I want to find out."
Something shifted in Connor's expression—the shock and betrayal not gone, but joined now by a softness, a tentative hope that made him look younger and more vulnerable than I'd seen him before.
"They really sold me," he whispered, as if saying it aloud might help him process the unthinkable reality. "To a man who—what? What would he have done with me?"
I tightened my grip on his hands, unwilling to detail the horrors Michael's investigation had uncovered about Harris's previous "acquisitions." The trafficking network. The disappearances. The bodies eventually found.
"Nothing good," I said simply. "But it doesn't matter now. He didn't get you. He won't get you." My usually guarded expression softened as I added, "You're safe here. With me."
The words felt like a vow, more binding than the hasty ceremony that had made Connor legally mine. In that moment, as the chandelier light played across his features and his hands slowly warmed in mine, I realized I meant every word.
He wasn't merchandise. He was Connor. And somehow, in the span of days, he had become essential.
Later that night, Connor sought comfort in my arms, his body pressing against mine in the dimly lit bedroom of the master suite.
Unlike our previous encounters, fueled by desperation or discovery, this was different—a seeking of solace, a desire for connection that transcended the physical.
His hands moved over my chest with deliberate slowness, each touch a question his voice couldn't form after the devastating truths I'd revealed at dinner.
I found myself responding with a tenderness that surprised me, my usual need for control giving way to something more vulnerable, more honest. The revelation about his family had stripped away another layer between us, leaving us both raw and exposed in ways neither of us had anticipated.
"I need to feel something real," Connor whispered against my collarbone, his breath warm on my skin. "Something that isn't built on lies."
I didn't answer with words. Instead, I cradled his face between my palms, studying the planes and angles that had become so familiar in such a short time.
His eyes held a wounded quality that awakened something fiercely protective in me, something I'd thought had died in twisted metal and broken glass three years ago.
When our lips met, it wasn't with the urgent hunger of our first night together or the playful exploration that had followed. This was slower, deeper, each movement deliberate and weighted with unspoken emotion. His hands traced the contours of my chest, careful around the scars as if they might still cause pain.
"You won't hurt me," I murmured, guiding his hands more firmly against my skin. "Not like this."
