Page 105 of Under Arthur’s Protection

“Listen, I…” I stopped. What was I doing? Talking to him. “I’m struggling here.”

The frown softened into concern, his brows knitting the way they always did when he asked if I was all right.

“Last night happened. Not just…” Was I actually going to say this? “Not just the sex, but everything we said to each other. I don’t want to pretend it didn’t.”

He didn’t respond, so I kept digging myself into a deeper hole.

“This morning, every time I tried to get close to you or talk to you, you found something else you needed to do.” I tried—and probably failed—to keep my voice level. “I’m not asking you to have it all figured out. I’m just asking you not to pretend nothing happened.”

The muscles in his jaw ticked, and his eyes stayed fixed ahead.

I fiddled with the hem of my new hoodie as my brain urged me to say more. What else was there? Really? “It’s not about your money, if that’s what you think.”

“Fuck, Gwen,” he sighed.

Had I pushed too hard? Should I have let it go? Did I ruin my chance at patching things up?

He let out a long breath and shook his head slowly. “My parents have been married for thirty-nine years.”

That was not what I’d been expecting.

“They have several beautiful homes and over a dozen luxury cars. Their dinner parties draw politicians, billionaires, and pop icons. My mother wears this—” He stopped to swallow deeply. “She has a smile she puts on for events. It’s perfect. Warm. Convincing. But it’s not real.”

I tucked my leg tighter and pivoted toward him as much as the seatbelt allowed.

“My father runs everything. The company, the houses, the social calendar, the image. We can’t forget the image.” He rolled his eyes. “Everything goes through him, and everything has a price. He’ll do something generous—give a gift, book a trip, make a donation—and seem like the hero. But he’s not, because he’ll use it. Not right away, though. No, he’s patient. But eventually, every bill comes due.”

“And your mother?”

He raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “She stopped pushing back a long time ago. I don’t know when exactly, but by the time I was a teenager, she simply went along with everything. Smiled when she was supposed to smile. Showed up when she was supposed to show up.”

The light was turning gold outside, the sun dropping lower over the fields stretching in every direction.

“And that’s what love looked like to you?”

“That’s the only version I had.”

“That’s why you left when I hesitated after one of us kissed the other for the first time?”

His mouth curved faintly. “I thought maybe you felt like you owed it to me.”

“It was definitely not that.”

He grew serious again, but he stayed with me instead of retreating behind the wall he’d built this morning.

I’d spent the past three years being wary of men I got close to, waiting for them to turn into Lionel. Waiting for every green flag to turn red. Even with Lance. He had an easy grin he aimed at hotel clerks and restaurant servers and, for a while, me. After Lionel, it had been safer to be with a man who didn’t let me go deep enough to find the real him, because it meant there was nothing real to lose.

That sounded too much like Arthur’s parents.

“Can I tell you what else I’ve seen?”

“Maybe?” His gaze cut to me, then returned to the road. “Am I going to hate it?”

“At the cottage, you told me about Hettie. About learning to cook at her side. I remember you tapped your chest and said the recipe was still in there.” I put a hand on my own chest, and the warmth I’d felt while he talked about her came back. “You cook for people, like she did. You provide for them. You’ve never once asked me to repay any of that kindness, and I’d be willing to bet you’ve never asked anyone else to repay it, either.”

“I guess.”

“You think love has to come with a cost, don’t you? With strings attached?” Go all the way, Gwen. Be honest with him. “I think your parents taught you to hide what you felt, so you had nowhere to put all your love. Now you’ve got a reserve of it built up inside of you, and you can’t help but give everyone else what you missed.”