“What did you do to my daughter? You must have done something to make her hate you.”
The day before, she would have given anything just to have a reaction out of him instead of his usual, neutral demeanor.Be careful what you wish for.Finally, she managed to speak. “I did nothing,” she said. “She’s a child. She is prone to losing herself to fits of strong emotion now and then. I’ve certainly seen the twins have their share of tantrums when they were her age.”
He shook his head and started pacing the room. “I knew this was a bad idea,” he muttered. “We never should have changed her schedule. I brought you here to help Lilly, not make her worse.”
“You certainly were not complaining yesterday,” she snapped. “By the time we started to head back to the manor after fishing, you were downright jovial.”
“Jovial?”
“As much as you are capable of such a thing, Your Grace.”
“Donotcall me that,” he snapped.
“Then stop trying to reprimand me like an employee and start treating me like your wife!” she shouted.
He glared at her. “Starting tomorrow, Lilly will go back to her old schedule. There is no point trying to force her to eat dinner with us when she clearly doesn’t want to.”
“You have not even given it a chance.”
“I gave it a chance tonight. It did not work. That will be the end of it.”
Marina shook her head. “Unbelievable. All of this because a grieving little girl acted out one time over dinner.”
“If you were doing your job correctly, she would not be acting out at all. That is not a rational way to show emotions or communicate.”
“She is five years old. Not even adults are rational all the time. Why should she be?”
“Because she is my daughter! Marrying someone was supposed to make her happy! I thought a mother would give her stability and make her feel safe enough so she would stop having nightmares. But I was wrong.”
“These things take time, Evan. You cannot just will emotions to go away, no matter how much you want them to.” She said it softly, feeling frustrated and tired. For a man who claimed to champion logic and rational thinking, he could be incredibly dense sometimes. “Lilly is going through a big change while still dealing with the death of her mother. Of course, she is going to be feeling strong emotions. But that does not mean we give up on her!”
“Her mother has been dead for a year. In all of that time, I’ve never seen her act like this.”
“Then maybe it is a good thing that she is acting out now,” Marina said. “Maybe her willingness to express emotion that she previously kept locked away means she is coming out of her shell and healing.”
He gave her a thoughtful look and stepped toward her. Even under the circumstances, she felt a thrill from having him move closer to her. “Have you considered that you are not thinking of her but yourself? Perhaps it isyouwho locked away her emotions in an effort to hide from hostile parents. Not her.” His voice was quiet now, but despite the note of restrained anger,she didn’t sense that he was trying to lash out at her. Instead, he sounded almost… hurt.
“I did not mean to imply that you were a hostile parent,” she said sincerely. “It’s clear that you want the best for her.”
“I do.” All of the anger had drained from his voice now. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I know I’m not a perfect parent … or a perfect husband.” His voice shook slightly on the word ‘husband’. The tremor was barely perceptible, but it was there. “But I’m trying, Marina.”
“I know. I know you are.” Impulsively, she reached out and grabbed his hand. He startled a little, but he didn’t pull away. She could not help but notice how strong and warm it was. It almost felt like he could—and would—protect her from the world. “Emotions like grief are hard for adults to process, let alone children. Even if you were a perfect parent—which does not exist—she would probably still have to lock some emotions away for later, or she would simply be too overwhelmed. Her acting out could just be her way of finally processing those emotions.”
He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then frustrated. Absentmindedly, he started to rub his thumb gently against the back of her hand. It took all of Marina’s effort to keep from reacting to how good it felt. Her gaze went to his lips, which were so close. They looked soft. She wished she remembered their wedding kiss better, as brief and formal as it was.What would it feel like to truly be kissed by this man?
After a moment, he seemed to come back to himself, and he tugged his hand away to run it through his hair. “Perhaps those emotions should have stayed locked away,” he muttered.
Fresh anger flared inside of her. “What utter nonsense.”
“She needs security and routine,” Evan said. “A routine that leaves no room for random outbursts.”
“You’ve given her a year of security mixed with the same routine every day, and it didn’t work!”
He glared at her. “She certainly did not act out like this before you came along.”
Marina put her hands on her hips. “She has also spent the past year waking up screaming in the middle of the night, so clearly your way wasn’t working!”
He shook his head. “This conversation is over. It is clearly going nowhere.”
