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That night, as they sat in bed, Jane rubbed at a smudge of red paint on her hand. “I feel like Lady Macbeth,” she joked. “Out, damn spot.”
Rafe smiled as he watched her. His family had spent the afternoon cleaning the graffiti off the patisserie’s shopfront while he and Jane had spoken with Mary, who had confirmed his version of events from sixteen years ago.
He’d hated the look of devastation that had dulled Jane’s lovely eyes at the news. Hated her father even more for it. That look still lingered in her gaze, even now, hours later, and Rafe knew he couldn’t let it fester.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“About Macbeth?”
No. The other betrayer.“About your father.”
She fidgeted by his side and finally abandoned the smudge of paint on her hand as a lost cause. Sighing quietly, she said, “Why didn’t he just ask me about it? Why hide it from me?”
“Because he wanted to protect you. Like your mum said.”
Mary hadn’t had a lot to say about it, but she did mention Jane’s age at the time being their main reason for interfering. “She was so young, Rafael.”
She’d also confirmed Jane’s theory that her father was bluffing about taking Rafe to court, that he’d banked on Rafe wanting to do the right thing by Jane and would do just about anything to protect her.
Even abandon her.
His blood still boiled over that little revelation.
“That’s bullshit. More likely he didn’t trust me to tell him the truth,” Jane said, pulling him back to their current conversation. “No matter what I do, it’s never enough for him. I’m just his vacuous twit of a daughter. No filter and no common sense.”
Rafe scowled at the hurt, the vehemence in her voice. “You know that’s not true.”
“What I know is my father deliberately separated me from the man I loved because he thought I was too naïve to know my own mind. My own heart. And….”
“And?”
“I’ve done some really dumb things in my life, Rafe. And all just to avoid ever going through that sort of heartache again. Because the day you left, was the worst day of my life.”
She hung her head. “I need to tell you something.” She sniffed. “You’re not going to like it and you’re probably going to rethink being with me after you hear it, but I have to tell you. I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us,” she said. “It’s about Sam.”
Steeling himself for whatever bomb Jane was about to drop, Rafe sat up a little straighter.
Resisting the urge to put his arms around her, he said, “Hit me with it.”
“Him and me, our relationship, our marriage.” She took a deep breath. “It was all a lie.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed and his hands curled into fists beneath the blanket. “Explain.”
Jane flinched at his tone, but Rafe couldn’t help it. The mere mention of her ex-fiancé made his temper swell to the point of exploding.
“It was a marriage of convenience,” she said. “I had the ideas and the money to back them, and Sam had the contacts in Melbourne and the know-how to make things happen. He was supposed to be my business partner. He was supposed to be my friend. He—”
“He was a conman, Janie,” Rafe said, his anger dissolving to nothing at the sound of her distress. He tugged her into his arms and held her against his chest, stroked her hair.
“Yeah, and he saw me coming a mile away,” she grumbled. “It was so stupid! I was so stupid. I lost everything and reinforced my father’s opinion of me in one fell swoop.”
Rafe had come across enough liars and thieves in his time to know even the smartest people got conned, and despite Jane’s belief to the contrary, he had zero intentions of rethinking their relationship.
It would take a lot more than that to scare him off.
But his curiosity did get the better of him. “Who’s idea was it to get married?”
“Mine. On the off chance I needed more capital, banks are still more willing to lend money to someone with a penis than without.”
