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“Trust me, there’s nothing easy about being tied to someone you don’t love and who doesn’t love you. I know that, because it’s where I am now in life.”
I felt my frown deepen. “You love Felicity—”
“I care about her, but I don’t love her the way I once did—and vice versa. We’re not together for the right reasons anymore.”
“The difference is … you didn’t marry her thinking that would ever be the case. You thought you’d get a happily ever after with her. I knew what I was walking into with Dax.”
“And it boggles my mind that you still did it,” he fairly bit out.
I bristled. “Not my issue. There’s no need for it to be yours. What I do doesn’t concern you.” I was getting damn tired of trying to get that message across to him.
“It shouldn’t. And I wish that it didn’t. But it does.” Torment swirled in his gaze. “I don’t want this for you. I want you to have what I don’t. It goddamn hurts to see that you gave up on finding something meaningful and settled for an arranged marriage.”
“So you thought you’d track me down and tell me to leave Dax?”
Grayden grimaced. “I’m not here to push you to divorce him. I’d be the biggest fucking hypocrite in the world if I urged you to walk away from a weak relationship—I sure as shit haven’t left mine. But I would have if it wasn’t for my daughters, Addie. So before you go having babies with Dax, think real hard about whether you want to trap yourself in an empty marriage that way.” He stalked off, marching straight to his vehicle.
With a silent curse, I hopped into my own. Plonking my purse and satchel on the passenger seat, I let a long breath slip out of me. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would hear about the pact—let alone Grayden, of all people.
Heprobablywouldn’t spread the news to others. I honestly couldn’t be sure. We weren’t exactly chums these days.
I reversed out of the parking space just as he sped out of the lot. Would I care if he did some gossiping? Yes and no. While neither Dax nor I required the approval of others, I’d rather he wasn’t the subject of gossip all over again. Christ knew he’d had enough of that growing up.
I also didn’t want to deal with people constantly asking if it was true and offering their opinion on it. Moreover, I didn’t want some deeming our marriage emotionally invalid due to it not being a love match.
Another thing Idefinitelydidn’t want was for women who coveted him to feel they didn’t need to respect the vows that he and I had made to each other. But if they felt the marriage wasn’t “real,” they might. That could lead to them thinking they were free to make moves on him.
Not that I believed he’d snap up any of those offers. I just didn’t want them being thrown at him in the first place. I doubted any wife would, arranged marriage or not.
Driving home, I chewed on all Grayden said. I had to admit that, if the situation were reversed, I might have had the same thoughts he did. I wouldn’t have sought him out to express them, but I probably would have felt sad that he was heading down the same sad road I had. Except … that wasn’t really the case because, as I’d tried explaining to him, our situations were entirely different.
He’d married for love. I hadn’t.
I still didn’t harbor any regrets about honoring the pact. If that ever changed and I felt the urge to dissolve the marriage, that was what I would do—children or no children. But then … it was easy for me to say that now, wasn’t it? Really, it would be hard to break up a family that way.
I wasn’t sure if it was always best for children to live with both parents if it meant they grew up in a negative environment, but I supposed it depended on the situation. There might not be a right or wrong answer, whatever the case.
The truth was that I wouldn’t really know exactly what I’d do in such a scenario unless I came to that bridge. All I could do was hope I never did.
When I finally arrived home, I found Dax in the pool. From the patio doorway, I watched him cover the length of the pool with strong, confident laps, his muscles tautening and rippling. He was so at home in the water he was like a damn fish.
I padded outside, careful not to stand in any of the wet footprints—the last thing I wanted was to go ass over tit. Spotting me, he slowed to a smooth stop. I flashed him a smile. “Hey, Nemo. How’s the water?”
Standing upright, he swiped a hand down his wet face and narrowed his eyes on me. “What’s wrong?”
Ugh. He read me far too well. “A little something went down that I figured you’d want to know about. It’s nothing terrible. Just irritating.”
Raising an expectant brow, he came toward me.
I poked the inside of my mouth with my tongue. “I bumped into Grayden.”
Dax’s eyelids lowered slightly. “Bumped into him?”
I felt my nose wrinkle as I jiggled my head a little. “Well, it was more that he was waiting near my car when I left work.”
His jaw hardened. “What did he say?”
“He made it clear that he found out about our pact and wanted to express his thoughts on it.” I gave a wan smile. “Apparently, he overheard Jag and Maverick talking about it.”
