Once Upon a Marriage (20 page)

“I hadn't actually met her,” he said, inanely. As though that detail mattered.

“How?” Marie stood her ground, even sitting. Smudged T-shirt and all. “How did you know her?”

He straightened his shoulders when he wanted to drop his head to her lap. “She hired me.” The words were killing him. He felt their blow.

He could feel the room deflate. Like a tire losing all its air. There was no anticipation, no energy or sense of family there. At least not that included him.

His gaze settled on his wife, on the emptiness in those brown eyes, and he lost every ounce of energy he had.

He'd known it was wrong. All of it. Marrying her. But way before then, too. Since he'd first started to fall in love with his client's daughter. He should have gotten out then.

Or been strong enough to fight the attraction.

Instead, he'd made one bad decision after another. For good reason, possibly, but he wasn't even sure about that anymore.

Maybe he'd just convinced himself the reasons were good. Because he'd met Marie and her friends, been taken in by the closeness they enjoyed, three nonbiologically related family members. He'd met Marie. And felt things he'd never felt before in his life. Hope. He'd started to see a future he'd given up without even realizing he'd done so until it was suddenly there, in front of him. For once in his life he'd refused to settle for being on the outside looking in.

“What did she hire you for?” The question was a good full minute in coming. Her voice sounded...cold. Something he'd never heard before. Not even with an irate customer.

Liam and Gabi would be there soon, and Elliott didn't doubt for a second that they'd both spring to action, too, just as soon as they knew what Marie needed them to do.

“To investigate Liam and watch over you,” he said to her. He could leave it at that. But didn't. “Originally she was concerned because of the three of you forming a company and buying the Arapahoe. You'd told her you were sinking your life's savings into the deal and she was afraid Liam had talked you into something. It was supposed to be a quick job. Simple investigating, a written report and out.”

Barbara's mistrust of Liam hadn't ever been a secret. But then, she mistrusted most men.

“She thought I had a thing for him,” Marie said. Her calmness was off-putting. So unlike her. And he hadn't realized she'd known that about her mother. “She knew I wasn't in love with him, but thought that was because I wouldn't let myself fall in love with anybody.”

She fell silent then. Saying nothing about his duplicity. Or her mother's.

So he continued. He wanted it all out. No more secrets. No matter what happened, being himself again, honest, a man of integrity, would, be a relief. “Shortly after I accepted the job, news of the Connelly trouble broke and there was even bigger cause for concern. The threats started coming against Liam, and Barbara wanted me to stay on in a bodyguard capacity to make certain you weren't in any physical danger. But she had one caveat. You were not to know, under any circumstances, that she'd hired me.”

“That's how you came to be at Liam's car in the back parking lot that night...”

He bowed his head. In some ways the worst was yet to come.

“I'd met Jeb Williams, his father's bodyguard, during my initial investigation of Liam. We exchanged professional courtesies and that was all. When I figured out that someone was after Liam, and that that also potentially put you in danger, I determined that the best way to protect you was to protect him.”

“So you concocted the story about Williams's sending you...”

Elliott focused on truth now, telling himself it hurt less. But he was aware of Marie, every breath she took as she sat there on that box. “I mentioned Williams, hoping that the association would give me enough credibility to convince Liam to give me a shot. He assumed Williams sent me on behalf of his father. The assumption was a godsend and I used it.”

There. It was all out now. Every last bit of it.

He was through. Done. He'd very probably ruined a client's relationship with her daughter. He'd lost a wife. A career. And lost any thought he might have harbored that he and Liam and Gabrielle would ever be close friends. But worse than any of it was knowing that he'd hurt Marie.

The one thing he'd pledged never to do.

“How did my mother find you?” She sat there, staring at him, her hands folded in her lap.

“A private investigators' directory I'm registered on. She chose me, initially, because I lived so close to the Arapahoe. She wanted someone who was familiar with the area.”

“Had you ever been to my shop before she sent you?” He took a minute to answer. Actually considered lying to her. If he'd met her before her mother had called, if he'd taken the job because he'd already felt a connection to her...

“No.” The word was in answer to her question, but also an admonition to himself.

No more slippery slopes for him. If he was all he was ever going to have, then at least he'd be a man he could count on.

He needed to touch her. To know that her heart wasn't completely closed off to him. To everyone. Had to know the extent of the damage he'd inflicted. And scrambled for a way to make it all right. To fix what he'd done.

“I'm sorry, Marie,” he said. “So, so sorry.”

Her silence was telling. She was shutting him out. Or shutting herself in.

Gabi and Liam would be there soon and he was glad. She'd have her best friends to lean on. To take her home. To tend to her.

He'd be left alone. Again. Knowing he deserved it this time didn't help. And he panicked a little. For just a second. Before he started thinking about her again.

And scrambled for a way to ease her pain.

“I love you so much. I expect that's hard for you to believe right now...”

“No.” She looked him in the eye. “No, it isn't. My dad always loved my mom...”

The reference to her father was not good.

“I would never be unfaithful to you, Marie. You have to know that.”

“And lying to me—okay, by omission—but lying...you don't think that was unfaithful?” Her tone was soft. Broken more than accusing. But he heard accusation. Each word pierced him anew.

“I can't deny that I married you knowing that you believed our meeting was chance,” he said, thinking only of her right then. “But please know that I chose the route that I thought was most faithful to you.”

She looked at him then and he tried to hold on while she seemed to study his soul—praying that she didn't see the weak part of him that had married her because he was scared to death he was going to lose her.

Huge bodyguard, protector of all, scared of a little five-foot-two woman...

“Believe me, I've been struggling since the second I suggested being your groom in the bar that night. My bottom line has been that I know, in my heart, that working for your mother had absolutely nothing to do with my feelings for you. She was the means by which we met, period. But if I told you who I was, how I came to be at the Arapahoe, there was a better than average chance that your trust issues would kick in and you'd run scared and never give happiness, give us, a chance...

“And I was under professional obligation to keep her secret. I could lose my license if I did not do so...” He refrained from telling her about her mother's threat to sue him. Because it wouldn't help Marie to know that. “And without a job, how was I going to provide for you? For our family? I have no other education. I don't know any other field...”

Her eyes filled with tears and Elliott figured he'd never seen anything so beautiful in his life. Because they told him her heart was softening. He couldn't stand back and watch. Going against every grain of instinct he had he said, “Please, Marie, don't throw me away because of this. I love you. I won't let you down again.”

“You will,” she said. “Because no one is perfect. Including me. The truth is, Elliott, I've been regretting our hasty marriage for reasons of my own.”

His chest constricted so tightly he couldn't breathe. A sensation Elliott had never experienced before. It was like being outside himself, looking down. He had the bizarre thought he was having a heart attack.

“I do have trust issues. And this whole thing, you not trusting me with the truth because you were afraid that I wouldn't stick around, is exactly what's been bothering me. I don't think I'm good relationship material. I'm damaged goods. A combination of my mother's paranoia and my father's inability to be a good spouse—though for different reasons. I love you so much...too much to do to you what my father did to my mother...”

“You'll never be unfaithful to me, Marie. You don't have it in you.”

“Not with another man, no. But isn't it unfaithful not to trust your spouse? Not to be able to believe in him?”

He didn't like where this was going. She was giving him a problem a gun couldn't possibly solve. He couldn't brute-force the danger away.

“And this whole situation with my mother just shows me another aspect of the problem,” she said, her expression compassionate more than accusatory. He was beginning to think accusation would have been the preferable treatment to hope for. “You were under obligation to keep her secret. Like you will be with all your clients. Your whole life, outside of our home, will be unknown to me. I, a woman with trust issues, married a man with a secret life. It's a recipe for disaster.”

He thought of Sailor Harcourt, the assignment he'd agreed to take on the following weekend, and knew she was right. Still, he couldn't just let go. Not this time.

“So we're aware of the issues, sweetie,” he said in his most gentle voice. “We're way ahead of a lot of newlyweds. A lot of old married folks, too. As long as we talk about things, as long as we're honest with each other, we can do this. Everyone has issues. No one is perfect. But not everyone has love.”

Having lived a lifetime without, he knew the value of what they shared.

Her lips quivering, she leaned forward to kiss him and he clung to her lips with his mouth, certain she was telling him goodbye.

“You win.”

He thought he'd made the words up in his head, to get him through the moment, until he saw the pained look in her gaze.

“But only for now,” she said. “If I can't handle this, if I see myself doubting you beyond what's healthy for either one of us, if I start to see myself acting or feeling like a crazy woman, I'm out. I love you too much to ruin your life.”

“The only way you're going to ruin my life is to leave it,” he said. And wanted to be completely right about that. Love had to be enough. He'd waited too long to find it to have it not be. But he was trained to see danger. And when he listened to the truth she was telling him, he couldn't deny that there was huge potential for failure staring straight at them.

“I have one more condition...”

Anything. She was going to let him move in. Move home. He'd do anything.

“You tell Liam and Gabrielle the truth.”

He'd already planned to do so. Agreeing to her stipulation was a piece of cake.

Earning her trust, being patient while she learned how to trust, might be the impossibility.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

C
OMPLETELY
 
TRUE
 
TO
 
his word, Elliott told Liam and Gabi about her mother's hiring of him, about the way he'd insinuated himself into Liam's situation, sparing himself nothing, before any of them loaded one thing into the moving truck.

Her friends had looked to her for her reaction to the news, and she'd done what a wife does. She'd supported her husband.

Inside, she'd been quaking. If she hadn't known Elliott was lying to her about her mother, how would she know how to discern any other time? Her father had said that a woman had a certain instinct about such things, but Marie hadn't had a clue.

Not until Elliott had been about to tell her the truth. That day when he'd been opening the door to his old life.

Her mother's hiring him, while it made her angry, didn't really surprise her. She'd been living with, and being at the brunt of, Barbara's paranoia for most of her life. Ultimately, while she didn't like it, she understood it.

And hadn't yet determined how she was going to handle that situation. Elliott was her husband. She wasn't going to run to her mother with the fact that he'd betrayed a professional trust. At the same time, she didn't feel comfortable keeping the truth from her mother. It was what her father had done. And she couldn't be her father.

Not unless she wanted to end up alone and lonely...

Figuring she and Elliott were going to have to figure out together what to do—and determining that they had time before they had to cross that bridge, she tried, instead, to focus on him. Loving him. Seeing him with her heart.

And just to be safe, she put off her father's visit for a bit.

* * *

T
HE
 
WEEK
 
WAS
 
everything a second week of marriage should be. And yet it wasn't. Elliott's days were filled with a new anticipation, a greater capacity to enjoy everything, from the taste of his food to the blue skies above him. And he lay in bed every night, after his wife had fallen asleep, and wondered what he could do to hold them together.

His upcoming job with Sailor loomed over him as much as telling Marie the truth about their meeting had done.

If it wasn't Sailor, it would be another job.

How could he help Marie trust him? How could he trust her to trust him? Because that was what it came down to.

She was right. As a husband, he didn't just need to be loved, he needed to be trusted. He wasn't going to be able to live with constant mistrust at the core of his relationship.

He couldn't live his life concerned about telling his wife the truth for fear of her not believing him.

And he'd already fed that mistrust by marrying her under false pretenses.

She knew all about his job and what it entailed. Had known since the first night they met—in her coffee shop the night after Liam and Gabi had found Liam's car vandalized in the park.

But she'd known Liam for a dozen or more years, had gone into business with him and had still freaked when Liam had had dinner with his editor.

Elliott sat in her shop Saturday morning, the night with Sailor looming to the point of being dangerous. He was still working for Liam and had to be alert, not worrying about what his wife would think if she knew what the evening's assignment entailed.

She hadn't trusted Liam to go to dinner with his editor and her husband of two weeks was going to be posing as Sailor Harcourt's escort for the evening?

Time was closing in on him. Again. He had to tell her.

With dread in his gut, he waited until he saw her heading down the hall to her office and then followed her. He couldn't live a lifetime like this.

But he'd promised to give her time.

And knew, in his heart of hearts, he couldn't just walk away from her, either. Not while happiness still lurked in their midst.

“I've been thinking,” he said as she greeted him with a kiss in the middle of the hall between the back elevator and the shop. “I should learn how to run all your machines. How to do whatever needs to be done behind the counter.”

What the...? He hadn't been thinking any such thing. Not right then, at any rate.

He'd never been behind the counter of her shop.

“Really?” Her grin made him glad he'd had the thought at some point. And that it had come to rescue him.

He'd tell her he was working that night. She knew he worked on call. He'd taken other spur of the moment jobs since she'd known him.

And that was all he had to tell her. Pretty much all he could tell her. No point in letting her know he was posing as someone's escort.

Or even that he was protecting a young woman that night.

Sailor had assured him there'd be no press.

He'd been making too much out of nothing. Not doing his part in trusting her to keep her word to him to come to him if she started to doubt him.

“You're my wife. I should know what to do if you ever need help,” he said, feeling somewhat better.

If he ignored the rock in his gut.

Her face serious beneath that ponytail that now only tempted him to take it down, Marie cocked her head and looked at him. “Okay,” she said. “You want to start now?”

Eva was busy speaking with a customer. Another was in line. The shop was half-full. “Can we have the first lesson be when you're closed?” he asked. He wasn't sure how nimble his big fingers were going to be pushing buttons, or how much room he'd take up bending over the small refrigerators...

“Of course. Tonight?”

He should have seen that one coming. Might have if the entire conversation hadn't just come off the cuff.

Before he could answer, Eva called out an order and as Marie went back to work, Elliott went out to speak with the guard at the front of the shop. He'd just come on at eleven. They were working twelve-hour shifts. Meant the guy would be there almost until Elliott got home that night.

He wanted to make certain the man knew that Elliott would be out. That he was to make absolutely certain Marie was safe.

Pulling Marie aside only long enough to tell her he'd had a call and had to go to work for a few hours, he went up to visit with Liam and Gabrielle. Told them he had to go out for a few hours that night. A job guarding a long-standing visiting client. They were both planning to be in for the day—working from home. They offered to invite Marie up for dinner. And a movie. Told him to be safe out there.

It wasn't “out there” he was worried about.

* * *

I
T
 
WASN
'
T
 
SO
 
bad being alone on her side of the table at Gabi and Liam's that night. The pasta was good—great. Warm French bread, fresh salad and a small glass of wine were nice, too. Knowing that the seat next to her, while vacant, was also taken, was the best part of all.

“If you ladies don't mind, I really need to get some more words done on the next installment of Dad's piece,” Liam said as the three of them were finishing up. “I'll get the dishes, though, if you want to head into the living room and relax.”

Marie wasn't fooled. And didn't think Gabi was, either. He was giving them time alone. Girl-talk time. Liam was Gabi's husband now, but he knew them. And was their best friend. Still.

“So, tell me how you're doing. Really doing.” Gabi didn't even wait until they were seated on the couch before starting in. Picking up the remote, she clicked on the TV.

They'd already decided what movie they wanted to watch.
Grease
, starring Olivia Newton John and John Travolta. It was before their time. But they'd seen it with Barbara one summer and loved it. When they'd passed a
Grease-
themed slot machine in Vegas, they'd looked at each other, said simultaneously that they needed to see the movie again and laughed.

“I'm really doing great,” Marie said. And then added, “Mostly.” She nodded. “Yeah, mostly great.” If you didn't count that she worried about getting worried. Was afraid she'd start to fear that her husband could be unfaithful to her. Look how she'd freaked out when Liam had dinner with his editor. The residuals of watching her father rip her mother's heart out. Again and again. And being unable to do anything about it. A product of knowing that sometimes love wasn't enough. She'd chosen them because they'd had first priorities other than her.

Elliott didn't.

He was good at his job. But he loved her.

“Mostly?” Of course Gabi would pick up on that. “Do you regret getting married like you did?”

“Absolutely not.” Elliott had been right about that part. She was glad he'd waited to tell her about his duplicity in their original meeting because if he hadn't, she might have done just as he'd said and bolted—robbing them of at least a chance of finding heaven together.

Except that his having done so had shown her she couldn't tell when he was lying to her. “I am so in love with that man. I... No.” She shook her head. “Mom getting married in Vegas, Elliott needing to be there with Liam...it was meant to be.”

Gabi watched her. “So why, mostly?”

“Do you ever worry about Liam? When he's out with his editor, for instance?”

“No.”

Chin jutted out, Marie nodded. “And there's no reason to. But I do. You know?” The way Liam used to talk...about wanting other women when he was in an exclusive relationship. He'd been a kid then. And he'd never acted on the temptation. But it had been there. He'd talked to them about it.

“You don't trust Liam? Our Liam?”

“Of course I trust him! I just...”

“Oh, sweetie.” Gabi moved scooted over. Gathered her close for one of the rare hugs she'd instigated over the years. “You worry, but you know why you do it. You realize it's unfounded. So while it's there, you don't give in to it. It's like someone who doesn't see well without glasses. She knows that, and she deals with it by putting on glasses. You took the big step. You let yourself love and get married. We'll keep the other in line. You aren't alone, you know.”

Marie wallowed in Gabi's caring for a minute more, thanking the universe for the life, the friendships and love she'd been given. Until Liam coughed. “You guys want some tea to go with that sugar?”

He was grinning at them.

Gabi threw a pillow at him.

And Marie grabbed the remote. Definitely time to start the movie...

Facing the screen, her hand on the play button, she froze. And peripherally realized that Liam had come farther into the room. Gabi was completely still.

“And tonight, gathering at the...” Marie stared, the news announcer's voice fading out and back in, like a cell phone losing reception. “...and with all the domestic violence issues suffered by the NFL this past year, some of the NFL's biggest stars are in attendance...”

She shook her head. Knew when Liam sat down on the arm of the couch beside her.

“It's a no-press-allowed affair, but a local shelter, who helped plan the affair, passed along a couple of pictures...”

Still photos. That were plastered on the screen.

A woman standing at a podium, obviously one of the speakers. A gorgeous, rich, smiling woman. And her name on the caption. Along with the name of her escort for the evening.

Marie dropped the remote.