Brave Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous #3)(45)

“I’m not trying to do anything. These are the facts. I’m simply informing you that your husband had an ulterior motive for marrying you and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him worm his way into getting what he wants at the expense of my daughter.”

His voice is angry, but I know it’s not all because of me. William O’Neal is likely much more upset that someone has nearly gotten the best of him in a business deal and he never saw it coming.

He didn’t see it coming and neither did I.

Ohgod ohgod ohgod! How can this be happening? How can this be true?

I feel like a child who has walked outside her charming woodlands cottage and stumbled onto a bloody battlefield. Inside my bubble there was this surreal sense that all these unexpected things were working out so perfectly. But now I’ve been pushed out the door by my father, pushed out into a reality that tells me I’ve been a pawn all along. The realization is beyond devastating.

“Weatherly, listen to me. You cannot let on that you know just yet. You have to let me get together with Donald on this. Damage control is imperative.”

I feel sick. Literally sick. My stomach can’t decide if it wants to hurt or swim, and my chest feels tight with carefully bottled emotion. And I can hardly think past the black hole of devastation that’s sucking at my heart, threatening to pull me into weightless oblivion.

“I won’t say anything, Dad. But what am I supposed to do? I mean . . .”

I don’t know how to assimilate this information. Yes, my relationship with Tag began as a farce, but somewhere along the way, it became very real to me. I fell in love with him, with the way he looks at me, the way he laughs with me. The way he makes me feel. The way I can see our future in his eyes. A future spent raising our children between the rows of grapes at our favorite place in the world. And now, to find out that he was playing me the whole time just to get his hands on Chiara . . . I don’t know what I’m supposed to think, what I’m supposed to do. How I’m supposed to act.

“You keep your chin up. You’re an O’Neal. And nobody pulls a stunt like this with an O’Neal. He’ll pay, sweetheart. He’ll pay.”

Although he can’t see it, I give my father a watery smile. While I appreciate him championing me, I don’t want revenge. At least not yet. Right now, I just want to crawl into a hole and die. Only I can’t. I have a husband who I’m supposed to be making a new life with. Enjoying. Getting to know on a deeper level. That sounded a whole lot different ten minutes ago. Ten minutes ago, it sounded wonderful to spend more time watching Tag tease and care for his mother. Ten minutes ago, it sounded rewarding to see how Tag would introduce me as his wife to his closest friend. Ten minutes ago, it sounded exciting to see how my husband will manage the vineyard during harvest season. Ten minutes ago, I was deliriously happy to be a part of his future. But now . . . now it just sounds heartbreaking. It sounds like a list of things I’ll never get to see because he isn’t who I thought he was. He was just a dream.

How will I be able to look at him without feeling betrayed? How will I be able to let him touch me without feeling dirty? How will I be able to spend time with him without feeling devastated?

I can’t. I can’t stop the way I feel. My only option is to try and control the way I express it. I can feel all the awful things; I just can’t show them.

For the first time in my life, I have found a use for the cool, emotionless way in which I was raised to comport myself. I’ll be involved because I have to be. I’ll be detached because I need to be. For self-preservation. That’s the best that I can hope for.

Tag appears in the doorway, a grin on his face and our luggage in his hands. All of our luggage. I look down at his long fingers, fingers that have teased and thrilled me more times than I can count in the last weeks.

A near-crippling wave of sadness floods me. I try not to let it show on my face, but I’m not quick enough. I wasn’t expecting him to show up before I was ready to face him.

I know he knows something’s wrong. His expression turns to one of concern and he drops all our bags on the floor and ambles in to me. “What’s wrong?” he asks when he kneels down to put himself at eye level.

Fighting back tears, I shake my head and point to the phone. I see his lips thin in anger. That’s fine if he thinks my father has said something to bother me. Whatever he thinks, whomever he blames will be a perfect and convenient red herring that I can use until this gets resolved.

“I’ll just talk to you later, Dad, okay?” I say into the phone.

There’s a moment of silence during which my perceptive father is no doubt deducing that my abrupt ending is a result of unwanted company.

“We’ll talk soon,” he says in his clipped way. All business. That’s my dad. But after his pause, he adds something else. Something long overdue and as rare as a night-blooming orchid. “Love you, Weathervane.”

Tears flood my eyes. I’m already emotional, but to hear my father say that, something that he hasn’t said to me in years, is my undoing.

“Love you, too,” I respond brokenly.

I hear the click of the line just before I let my phone fall from my ear into my lap so that I can cover my face. I wish Tag would just leave me alone in my grief, but he doesn’t. Instead, he scoops me up with a gentleness that burns my poor heart like hot wax to new skin, and carries me silently up the stairs. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t pry. Obviously, he’s drawing his own conclusions about my distress. He just takes me to our room—what used to be only my room and has ceased to feel like that since the first time we made love in it—and lays me on the bed. He pushes the hair back from my face and kisses my forehead. And my eyelids. And my nose.