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‘Needless to say she butted heads with my father almost on a daily basis.’
Ax tensed. Not wanting the mood tarnished, I passed my hand over his chest—a soothing gesture that worked with Andreos but might not work with his father. My breath caught when he exhaled after a handful of seconds.
‘Anyway, I found out on my wedding day that she’d left me an envelope. My mother was to give it to me when she thought I needed it.’
A trace of regret flashed across his face. ‘She thought you’d need it the day you married me.’
It wasn’t a question, more of an acceptance of how things had turned out.
I shrugged. ‘Besides my father, none of us knew much about you. What little I knew before we met at the altar I found out online,’ I said, recognising but unable to stop the hint of censure in my tone.
The regret in his eyes deepened as he nodded. ‘I accept that. So your father really kept you in the dark about everything?’
‘Yes. And it wasn’t anything new. He did that most of my life.’
‘Why?’
The whisper of family shame slithered over my skin. ‘Surely you’ve heard the rumours?’
‘I prefer facts to rumours,’ he stated.
I didn’t bother to ask what he’d heard. I wanted this discussion over as quickly as possible.
‘My mother left home when I was fifteen. She’d met another man and was planning on leaving my father. But they were involved in an accident. The man died. My mother survived—obviously—but she suffered a spine injury and... Well, you’ve seen her. My father brought her back home and promised to take care of her—under certain conditions.’
The hand that had been lazily trailing through my hair froze. ‘It seems your father makes a habit of using people’s misfortunes against them.’
I couldn’t deny that truth. And when Ax used his hold to gently propel my gaze up to his I couldn’t hide it from him.
Whatever he saw in my face made him exhale again. ‘I used to think that was an encompassing Petras family trait,’ he murmured.
‘Used to?’ Did that mean he’d changed his mind? That he wasn’t tarring me with the same brush as my father any more?
He continued to stare at me for a long stretch. ‘You’re nothing like him. You have a formidable inner strength that he doesn’t—clearly inherited from your grandmother,’ he said.
The low, gruff words opened up a fountain of emotion inside me that stopped my breath, especially when he brushed his lips over mine, as if wanting to seal the words in.
Getting carried away would have been so easy, but I forced myself to pull back. ‘Anyway, I moved from under my father’s thumb to under yours without any intermission—’
He stiffened, his face growing a shade paler. ‘Under my thumb? I made you feel like that?’
I shrugged. ‘You dictated where I would live. How I would live. Without giving me a say. So when you told me to find a way... I did.’
His jaw tightened and after a moment he nodded. ‘I don’t blame you for staging a rebellion. I would have in your shoes too. Perhaps not with anonymity but...that’s understandable considering my reaction to our marriage.’
Tears prickled my eyes, threatening to spill at the thought that he was seeing things from my side. ‘Anyway, my grandmother’s letter left details of a Swiss bank account in my name. I went to Switzerland to see what it was all about. She’d left me the means to live under a new identity if I chose. There was also a box with some of her things in it.’
‘That’s how you were able to live without detection for a year?’ he said.
I nodded. ‘I think she meant me to use it more as a way to rebel against my father than a way—’
‘For you to escape your new husband?’ he finished with terse amusement.
‘Either way, it seemed like a sign.’
A touch of hardness entered his eyes. ‘Leaving your husband tearing his hair out for a year.’
‘You weren’t my husband. You especially weren’t interested in being one the morning after the wedding. You married me to save your precious company, so don’t pretend my absence caused you any personal slight or even—heaven forbid—any anxiety!’
