It wasn’t Axel’s warnings poisoning her opinion. Otto had radiated coldness. He had kept a distance between them and made her bristle with the way he looked at her. His gaze hadn’t had the lecherous quality of the men at the club, but it had been a cousin to it. He had called her by her birth name and mentally calculated her intrinsic worth based on her off-the-rack dress and how likely he was to get what he wanted from her. He’d regarded her as an object, not a person. She’d felt it.
Despite all the things she’d told herself for years, all thejust curiousjustifications she’d made in the last forty-eight hours, she had come here yearning for a sense of homecoming. She had wanted him to open his arms to her. She had wanted to feel wanted. She had wanted to be missed.
Instead, she’d been disdained. Scorned. She was suffering a depth of disappointment that threatened to drown her. She was in such pain, she didn’t want Axel to touch her, but she needed his help drawing her out of the car. The strength of his arm across her back was necessary as he guided her stiff, frozen body into a new building.
He brought her into a silent apartment. She had the sense of being on the top floor because the ceilings were high above exposed rafters. Angled windows poured light onto the combined kitchen, dining and living area. There was a terrace, but she only stood at the closed double doors that gave access to it, staring blindly at concrete tiles and empty flower boxes.
“You’re upset,” he said grimly. “You have a right to be. His behavior was appalling.”
“His?” she choked and swung around to confront him.
“He was always going to be exactly as you met him today,” he asserted as he yanked off his satin tie. It was such a dark blue, it was almost black. “You would have come here whether we married or not. Wouldn’t you? You wanted to meet him.”
She clenched her teeth, refusing to admit that because it sat too close to the hidden longings inside herself. No, she had never expected anyone to show up and save her, but she had wanted them to want to. She had wanted someone to say,I would have kept you if I could.
She had wanted Otto to say,If I had known about you, I would have found you sooner. She had wanted him to say there was a good reason—a really good one—that he had waited to reach out to her.
Otto had let her down so crushingly, she felt sick with it. She wanted that not to matter, but it did.
“He would have tried to use you, one way or another,” Axel continued brutally. “Against me, against Mira. Whatever served him.” He opened his collar button with an impatient twist, then his cuffs so he could roll them back. “He would have tried to use your family troubles to keep you in line. By marrying me, you took control and made that impossible. He can’t hurt you now.”
“He already has,” she blurted, voice catching raggedly. “I want to go home.” She wrenched at the rings he’d give her, struggling because her fingers had swollen overnight. “I’ll find a way to pay you back f-for everything—”
“Joy, stop it.” His hands tried to capture hers, and she knocked him away. “You’re angry with him so you’re trying to run away from me,” he said sternly. “Stay and fight.”
“I don’t want to fight,” she cried. “I was happy as I was.”
“Like hell you were,” he snapped back. “You were already in a fight, and you were losing.”
“So what?” She stepped in close to confront him. “I didn’t ask you to fix it for me! I sure as hell didn’t ask you to bring me tothis.” She was starting to break apart, emotions rising to burn hot against the backs of her eyes, elevating the pitch in her voice. “I just wanted my father to be okay. And you took advantage of that.” She poked him in the chest. “You knew how desperate I was, and you used it.”
“Yes,” he agreed flatly. “But I’m on your side.”
“You’re onyourside.” She clenched her eyes tight. Tears solved nothing, and it felt so weak to weep, especially when she had done this to herself. She had agreed to come here. She had married him, deluding herself into thinking this would work in her favor.
“We’re on the same side,” Axel insisted.
“How? I can’t trust you. How could I?” She snapped her eyes open.
“I told you exactly what was going to happen.” His unflinching stare hammered that home to her. “I didn’t lie about any of it.”
That was why this was worse than what had happened with Todd. Axel might not have lied the way Todd had, but she had still fooled herself into believing things would be different. She was devastated by her own gullibility. She was hurting and exhausted, far from home and very alone. That was what she was facing as she stared at him. She was starkly alone. She always would be. It was terrifying.
“Can I trust you?” The bite in his voice sent a chill across her skin, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. “Because you promised me a year.”
She’d seen how he reacted to people who broke their promises. And backing out now would mean more than dissolving this marriage. She would have to find a way to cover her father’s bills again. Beg the neighbor to help with his care. It was so daunting, hot tears rose afresh behind her eyes.
Axel had her cornered, and he knew it.
A phone rang, startling her so badly she jumped.
“It’s the doorman telling me my lawyer is here.” He moved to a cordless phone on an end table and spoke briefly before clicking it off and setting it aside. “What’s it going to be, Joy? I need to know whether you’re staying so I know how to direct him.”
He sounded completely removed from the outcome. He didn’t care whether she stayed, not beyond how it affected his plans, only that she be clear in which way she would jump.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?” she said in a garbled voice. Then, because she needed to collect herself and wash off her makeup before she cried it down her cheeks, she asked, “Where are my things? I want to change.”
“Upstairs,” he said remotely.
