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“So they were separated? Like a legal separation?”
I shook my head. “Not to my knowledge.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes, and Jax was right. The casserole may have been simple fare, but it was very good. The salad was crispy with lots of iceberg lettuce, the way I liked it, and the homemade rolls were delicious. I told him so, and he gave me a beautiful smile.
“I’m glad you like them,” he said. “It was one of the first things my nana taught me to bake.”
“You were very close to her, weren’t you?”
“Yes. I came to live with her when I was young. My mother had died after a miscarriage and my father already had three other sons to raise. He didn’t know much about younger kids. Or omegas, for that matter.”
“Wasn’t your mother an omega?”
“Yes,” he replied, flushing a little. He laid down his fork and glanced up at me. “I-I don’t think their marriage was a happy one.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I replied. I wanted to show interest but give him an answer that didn’t require much in the way of more explanation if he chose not to give it.
“She was unhappy in the marriage,” he said, leaning forward a little like this was important. “My grandmother said that what she really always wanted was to be a teacher. She used to play school with her friends, with them as the students and her standing up in front of them like she was their teacher. My nana sent her to school for it and everything, and she got her degree. But she had to go in the omega auction when she turned twenty-one, and my father—the one who bought her contract—didn’t want her to work outside the home. He forbade it, in fact, and she started having babies right away.”
“I see.”
He looked up at me with a hopeful expression. “Do you? Because she was so unhappy after that.”
“I’m sorry, Jax,” I said, reaching for his hand. His gaze was searching my face as if he wanted to make sure I really meant it.
“And then your grandmother took you in?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. I was hoping he’d just come out and tell me what was on his mind. I could tell something was bothering him.
“Yes. My nana was an omega, but her father never put her in the auctions. She never married.”
“That’s…unusual,” I said. And it was—I knew his grandmother had been very beautiful. She must have had other opportunities to marry. I’d seen her pictures in Jax’s house, and my uncle had a photo of her in a frame in his bedroom at his home. She was stunning, with the same blonde hair as Jax’s and a sweet expression. I’d had to remove the photo from his personal effects before they were packed up to be sent back to his wife in France, as she had signed it, “Yours, Marie,” and put in a row of X’s and O’s. That was after I’d met Jax, and I had already formed an opinion about her. It wasn’t unusual for men like my uncle to have affairs and even mistresses, but there seemed to be something more to the story. The fact my uncle had placed the photo beside his bed went a long way to show me how he really felt about her. I had wondered if Jax knew he was married.
“My nana never married, because she wanted her own bake shop and she wanted to belong just to herself. She was a woman in a time where that didn’t happen too often, and she had a child out of wedlock. She was afraid a husband would prevent her from realizing her dreams.”
“She never married, but she had a child anyway?”
“Yes, two children. My mother and a little boy. He died before his first birthday.”
“Not…my uncle’s?”
“No. It was a young man she grew up with. He would have married her, but he died unexpectedly of an aneurysm. Her mother disowned her when she found out she was pregnant, but her father helped her, and she made her way here. She met your uncle soon after she arrived.”
“I see. It’s all very sad.” And I thought I did see. My uncle, unhappy in his arranged marriage—a common thing with wealthy Dragons to keep the money in the families—had left France to establish a branch of his business in America. He’d met the beautiful Marie and fallen in love. Had they been true mates? Was that why he could never bear to leave her and why she’d never married?
I thought about what I’d have done if I’d already been married when I met Jax. I decided I wouldn’t have been able to resist him either, so I wouldn’t judge my uncle. We had no concept of divorce. Our Dragon laws were cruel at times.
I looked up and saw Jax watching me and decided to change the subject.
“Josh said he took you to the omega doctor this afternoon. How did that go?”
“Fine,” he said, getting up to take a lemon meringue pie off the counter. “I’ll get dessert,” he said.
Which must mean he didn’t want to talk about it.
“It looks delicious. I’m not sure I’ll have room for dessert though.”
“You can have a slice later, if you like.”
I polished off the last of my roll, took a sip of his excellent iced tea and sat back in my chair.
