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The day they’d married had been the one time she’d seen him visibly lose control of his emotions—when it wasn’t cool disapproval but white-hot fury that had rolled off him. His reactions had been driven by that rage. She still didn’t understand why he’d felt it so strongly. But he’d recovered himself quickly and worked through, deciding that their merger—marriage—was a good one. She wanted to help him now.
‘This is why you’re so focused on work,’ she said.
He dropped his hands and a soft, weary chuckle emerged. ‘You love work, why can’t I?’
‘You used it to get your independence.’
‘Yeah. Sound familiar?’ He lifted his head and looked at her. ‘I wanted to earn enough to take her away and give her a damned palace, if that’s what she wanted. But she didn’t want it. She wouldn’t leave him. I don’t know if she ever will.’
Darcie’s heart broke for him. ‘Relationships are complicated,’ she said. ‘I’ve never really understood them all that well.’
‘Ditto.’ His lips twisted. ‘Work is the outlet for my own controlling tendencies.’
She shook her head. ‘You don’t have controlling tendencies. You’re not like him, Elias.’
‘You don’t know that,’ he said painfully.
‘I do,’ she whispered.
But some of those things his father had tried to drill into himweretrue—Elias was smart, successful, a natural leader. And he did often get what he wanted. But because heworkedfor respect, not by bullying others into it.
‘I’ve worked alongside you foryears,’ she added. ‘More than long enough to know you’re not manipulative. You’re not coercive. You’re not a bully. Not in any way. You never even yell at anyone.’
He inspired his employees. He didn’t harangue them. Yes, he had high expectations—but the highest he saved for himself.
He sighed and bent his head again. ‘Don’t be kind, Darcie.’
‘I’m being honest.’ She brushed the backs of her fingers against his tense jaw. ‘You should let yourself have more, Elias.Somuch more than just work.’
‘Work is a good challenge. Safe.’
‘There could be other challenges, too.’
‘No. It’s enough. It’s all I need.’
No, he needed—and should have—so much more than that. Just as she should have more, too. Her heart ached for him because she knew what it was like not to have had a home that was a safe haven. Not to have had a loving family. And it couldn’t be fixed. There was nothing she could say that could magically make this all better. It was what it was, and she knew that moving forward took slow processing, slow progress. So she stepped back.
‘You know what youneed?’ She nudged his shoulder with her own.
He looked at her in query.
‘Refuelling.’
He laughed briefly and shook his head. ‘You know I’m bigger than you. I can’t subsist on cashews and camembert...’
‘Subsist?’ she mock-screeched. ‘Yeah, well, I mightn’t be able to cook but I can reheat every bit as well as you do.’
They’d been heating assorted Michelin-starred meals all week. She figured it was her turn to use the microwave. It didn’t take a moment to put one of the packs into the microwave and while the machine was humming she fossicked through the linen, silver and glassware the designers had stocked the cupboards with.
Elias watched her with mild bemusement. ‘Are you actually setting the table?’
‘Yeah, quick, do you want to take a photo?’ she quipped tartly.
His smile flashed. She set the plates down on the placemats and they both picked up their forks. The food had been ordered in from another Michelin restaurant and melted in her mouth. She’d never had this kind of nourishment when growing up. She’d never hadanyof this before. And maybe Elias needed to understand that, too—to know why helping Lily was so important to her. And to let him know she understood something of the stress he’d felt in his own family.
‘Dinnertime is such a happy family cliché,’ she said softly. ‘And I never fitted in to a happy family picture.’ She inhaled. ‘My father walked out before I was even born. My mother made it only a few months before handing me in to a refuge. I must have been...’ She shrugged with the echo of hopelessness she’d long ago felt. ‘I don’t know what I was or why it was that I couldn’t seem to last with one family for more than a year.’ She swallowed. ‘Some tried. Some were clearly just collecting the fee. One had their own daughter who was a similar age and when I did better at her in school, they decided I was too difficult and would be better off with a family that could give me the attention I needed.’
‘But you didn’t get it?’
