Julia James - Greek Mavericks - Seduced Into The Greek's World

“Nothing.” She blinked back tears. Tears of frustration, of sorrow. Tears because everything about this situation hurt, and no one was left undamaged. “I went along with everything my father wanted from me because I had the idea that if I did he might be happy. That was how I chose to deal with the loss of my mother. I thought you would be my reward. But I’m realizing something.”

“What is that?” he asked, his voice sounding rung out, scraped raw.

“Another person can’t be your reward. Because they’re yet another thing you can’t control.” She laughed, but nothing was funny about it. “A person isn’t cake. They can’t just exist to be a treat for you. They have their own baggage. Their own needs and desires. And it wasn’t until just before your accident that I started to fully realize that you weren’t just going to magically become that reward I felt I deserved. And it wasn’t until this that I... Leon, I didn’t know about your son. I’m embarrassed to admit how little I know about you. I expected you to be something for me, only for me. And I never realized that whatever you were, as broken and debauched as it was...maybe you needed to be that for yourself. For your own pain. I never... I never once considered that.”

It didn’t fix the past. It didn’t make her trust him. It didn’t really even make her forgive him. But understanding that he had suffered a loss greater than any she could possibly imagine did help cast him in a new light. It helped explain some of his behavior. His drinking.

It didn’t remove the deep wound from her heart. There was no magic here. Only grim understanding that didn’t do a thing to revive the scorched earth that surrounded them.

“I was afraid when I came in here,” he said, not addressing what she had just said. “I was afraid that she would be...”

“She’s fine,” Rose said, knowing that the assurance was empty.

Because she knew what he would always see. She knew what he would always fear as he approached the crib.

And she knew then with absolute certainty why he had signed away his parental rights to Isabella.

“That’s why,” she said. “It’s why you didn’t want her.”

“If you had asked me what love was after my accident I would have told you... I don’t know. But if you ask me now... Love is pain, Rose. It is a hope that blooms with no thought for what might lie ahead. No cares about what could go wrong. And that makes it all the more painful when it’s cut away. Devastating. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to do this again.”

“She’s here now,” Rose said. And as hard as it had been for her to accept Isabella, she couldn’t imagine sending her away. It was a process. There was no getting around that. For Rose, there had been no magical maternal bond between herself and this little baby. But there was something growing in her chest. Blooming, just as he had described it. The beginnings of love.

And protectiveness. She felt that, too. The desire to prevent Isabella from feeling unwanted. Unwanted by Leon or herself.

“Yes,” he said, “she is.”

“You can’t send her away.”

“I never said I would,” he responded.

“It’s my turn to be fearsome about it,” she continued. “Things are changing. You are changing. The more memories fall into place, the more you’re going to become who you were. And if you think that your original reasoning can stand in light of that—”

“I don’t,” he said, pushing himself up from the floor, beginning to pace the length of the room.

“And if you do? If you do then I’m going to fight you. Every step of the way. No more secrets. We can’t afford to have any between us. This is our life.” She was making a stand, a stand she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to make. A commitment. “I want to be a family.”

“I don’t know if I can promise that.”

“You will promise it. You will, or I’m going to have to fight you. For this house. For her.”

“You couldn’t win a fight against me. As you’ve already explained if you do not stay married to me for three more years you don’t get the house. And as for Isabella... Biologically she’s mine. You don’t have a right to her.”

She was remembering now. Remembering all the ways he could be so impossible. So arrogant. It had been easy to forget because the Leon of the past few weeks had been held at a disadvantage. But this was the man she had always known. Strong. Driven. Occasionally ruthless.

He had done nothing but reveal vulnerability over the past weeks. And she could tell he was fighting now to reclaim these traits.

“So what, then? What is it you want?”

“You will remain my wife.”

“And you think you will continue to live as you did? Only instead of abandoning me alone in the manor you’ll leave Isabella here, as well?” She stood, closing the distance between them. “That would be in keeping with your past behavior. Shut away the women that cause you grief, that might get in the way of your good time.”

“It is not so simple, and you know it. Especially now that you know about Michael.”

“Love scares you. You, big bad Leon Carides. It terrifies you, and you run from it.”

“Only a fool isn’t afraid of a lion, Rose. Even I know well enough to be afraid of things that can be fatal.”

She was pushing too far. She knew it, but she couldn’t help it. “I know you’ve suffered loss. I know you’ve suffered pain. But it doesn’t give you the right to put other people through hell while you protect yourself.”

“You spend your whole life hiding in this mansion, hiding yourself behind the convenient lies you tell yourself, little girl. Hiding in books. You think you know pain because you lost your parents. I buried my child. Do not lecture me on pain. Do not lecture me from your safe little nest. You know nothing. Nothing at all.”

He turned on his heel and walked out of the nursery, leaving Rose there alone with Isabella.

She debated going after him, but decided against it. She turned and walked to the crib, leaning over the side, letting her knuckles drift over the soft skin of the baby’s cheek.

She knew more about Leon now than she had before walking into the nursery. She had a piece of who he was. An explanation for why he was. And yet she felt no closer to him than she had before. If anything, she felt like there was a greater distance between them.

She was beginning to believe that they would never be able to bridge this divide.

The more reality crept in, the more it filled this space between them, the more impossible it seemed they could ever find their way back to each other.

He was not her reward. She thought of everything they had. A broken marriage, loss, pain. She couldn’t see the reward in any of it.

She looked down at Isabella again. Maybe there were no rewards at all. Maybe there was simply life. And what you chose to do with it.

“I don’t know that my father ever knew what to do with me,” she whispered into the silence of the room. “But I loved him anyway. He loved me, too. He didn’t know how to show it, but he did. You see, much like your father he lost someone he loved very much. My mother. I think it becomes difficult after that to show love.”

She only realized just now, talking to an infant who didn’t understand a word she was saying, that it was the truth. Her father was more comfortable with work, with Leon, because it was simpler than love. Taking a protégé on, helping him succeed...it cost less than loving.

Love was so terribly expensive. And she was only fully grasping that now.

“I loved your father,” she continued, a hot tear slipping sown her cheek. “But he’s never loved me. That hurts. It makes me want to curl into a ball and never love anything ever again. But I think you’re going to need someone to love you. I will. I’ll love you like no one has ever hurt me. We didn’t choose this. And you certainly deserve better than me. But it’s time for me to start making some choices. It’s time for me to stop waiting. I choose you, Izzy.”