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He inclined his chin. “No problem, man, but hey, if you change your mind and you decide you want to talk about any of that other stuff, I’ll still be here.”

“Do you really think I want to talk to you about sex?” I groaned. “You sleep next to my sister, Alex. I choose to believe your kids were conceived immaculately, and besides, she already had the birds and the bees talk with me. About ten years before I even met you.”

He laughed. “Fair enough, but I am serious about being here if you want to talk about anything else.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember that.”

Oddly, I meant it, too. When I walked out of the stupidly expensive bar, I even felt like I could really trust him again. As always, Alex had shown up. He’d been here to reassure me about my father’s role in my life from here on out. He’d made me see that my sister wasn’t trying to force some kind of family reunion and reminded me that my brothers, Jane, and I needed to have each other’s backs right now.

He’d not only sorted it out so that I could actually have my trust fund, even if it had come with new strings attached, but he’d also somehow found me a wife I actually liked. A wife I really hoped would be home by the time I got there because I genuinely couldn’t wait to see her.

When I walked in, the living areas were dark, but as I hung up my coat, I saw the faint outline of her sitting on the couch, awake, but with her legs curled under a blanket.

“You’re home,” she said quietly, pushing the blanket off her legs and standing, but not to run over and throw her arms around me. In fact, she crossed them instead, and though I couldn’t make out her expression in the dark, there had been something tight in her voice.

Something that made my hackles rise immediately. “You waited up for me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to ask you something.”

My stomach flipped over. “Okay. Shoot. What is it?”

“I read an article in the paper tonight,” she said, and my blood turned to ice. “It was about your father, Holden.”

“I told you he was in prison, didn’t I?”

“Sure, but you neglected to mention what he was there for, how long he’d been there, and more importantly, that he was getting out soon.”

I exhaled a harsh breath and shoved a hand into my hair. “So? There still isn’t an exact date for his release as far as I’m aware, and as for the rest of it, do you honestly expect me to believe you didn’t know?”

“Yes, because I didn’t.”

I scoffed. “Bullshit. You grew up in this city. Everyone around here has heard of Court Thayer.”

“Maybe I’ve heard the name, but I didn’t put two and two together. Honestly, I’m not even really sure that he, or anything he did, was ever on my radar. In case you’ve forgotten, I had other things to worry about around that time. Things that deeply affected my own life.”

“So that’s the reason you agreed to marry me,” I said, the truth suddenly staring me right in the face. It felt like I’d stepped on one of those lethal, electric eels as the shock ricocheted around my insides. “You heard the name Thayer, but you didn’t know how the mighty had fallen, did you? You just thought I was rich, so you married me without knowing that we lost everything.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you seriously doing this?”

“I thought you were just being practical. Alex probably offered you a bunch of money. I knew that too. I just thought maybe you didn’t care who you married as long as the money was right.”

She stepped closer. “Is that what you thought of me?”

“I didn’t know you.”

“Clearly, you still don’t.”

She sounded hurt when she said it, but it sliced right through to the core of my being when she took a big step back, her shoulders caving in a little like she was trying to make herself smaller. That just pissed me off even more. If she’d been angry with me, I would have taken it. Yelling, I knew what to do with, but hurt?

Why the fuck is she hurt? I haven’t done anything to her.

“I didn’t trust you when we got married because when my father got arrested, I was young enough to really feel the loss of my dad, but old enough to see the ugliness that came with it. That’s what I grew up around.”

“Holden—”