Page 167 of Theirs to Tempt: The Marriage Claim

Caleb takes a slow breath. “I told him that if he put the ring on your finger, your father would learn exactly why he wanted to marry you.”

The answer is so far from anything I expected that I frown. “What does that mean?”

“He talked openly about Richard never giving him the opportunities because he wasn’t family.”

My heart rushes past its next beat. “He loved me.”

“He wanted what being your husband would give him.”

I turn away from them and stare through the windows at Houston, although the city is nothing but a blur of light.

“Adrian believed marrying you gave him a path to everything Richard had built. Influence first. A larger role in the business. Eventually, yes, whatever came to you.”

My stomach twists.

The memories are suddenly too easy to reinterpret. Adrian asking thoughtful questions about my father’s business, telling me how proud my dad would be when I graduated.

I turn back then. “How did you know you were right?”

Caleb holds my gaze. “We didn’t.”

The admission catches me off guard.

“So we gave him an opportunity to choose you when those things were taken away.”

My throat tightens.

After Caleb spoke to him, Adrian’s face went pale.

And instead of coming back to me, explaining, denying, begging me to listen—anything—he walked away.

No one speaks for several seconds.

The old wound feels different now, but not smaller.

For almost a decade, I believed Adrian abandoned me because these two threatened him.

Instead, they threatened to expose the truth.

And the truth was, he was using me and my emotions.

Caleb and Lucian had been right about him. And if they had not intervened that night, I might have married him.

I feel hollow. He’d wanted something from me. But so had they.

And since I still don’t have a satisfactory answer, I turn back toward Lucian. “Then why me?”

His expression changes.

Not dramatically, since Lucian rarely gives anything away that easily. But I notice the way his shoulders settle as if this matters. “Your dad had approached us about becoming an investor in his companies.”

The knowledge makes me grab hold of the counter.

“We were considering it.” He glances at Caleb before returning his attention to me. “At first, you were simply Richard Langford’s daughter. As part of our due diligence, we were looking at the people around him.”

“How closely?”

“Closely enough to know you weren’t interested in stepping into his business just because it was available to you. You were building something of your own. You were intelligent, independent, and entirely unimpressed by the things most people find impressive.”