Living in Secret: Living In..., Book 3 Read online

  “Then what is it about? You want more and he doesn’t?”

  “No. I’m the one who doesn’t want more.”

  Eleanor gave her a narrow look. “Oh, so he does?”

  “Yes. He wants to…try again.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  A simple question with a not so simple answer. “It’s complicated.”

  Eleanor gave a soft laugh. “Yeah, it always is. Apparently. But sometimes, it’s actually quite simple. You either love him and want to try and make it work. Or you don’t.”

  No, it wasn’t that simple. Eleanor didn’t know about Jessica or Connor’s father. Didn’t know about the passionless marriage she and Connor had had before. Didn’t know about the passion they’d discovered between them. There was too much that was complicated. Too much that was painful.

  Bullshit. She’s right and you know it. You either love him and he’s worth trying for. Or you don’t and he’s not.

  Victoria’s throat closed, the hollow feeling deepening into an ache. That knowledge of what she felt for him sitting in the back of her mind. A pull she couldn’t deny. The same kind of pull that dragged at her whenever she thought about her daughter. Longing. Yearning for something she couldn’t have. Something she didn’t deserve.

  His strength. His sense of fairness, of justice. His passion.

  “I will fight for you…”

  No one had ever fought for her. No one had ever believed in her.

  Because you’ve never been good enough.

  She stood all of a sudden, her chair scraping back loudly on the wooden floor. She had to get out, get away. Somewhere away from the thoughts going ’round and ’round in her head. From the feelings inside her stinging like salt in an open wound.

  “Sorry, Ell,” she said, her voice sounding strange. “I have to get back to work. I’ll call you.”

  As she stalked out of the club, she tried to ignore the look of disappointment on Eleanor’s face. And the sound of Connor’s voice resounding in her head. The one that kept whispering she was running away. Easy for him to say when it was painfully obvious he’d never had a choice about the demons in his past. He’d had to fight, for his mother’s life and for his own. Survival at its purest level.

  But she’d had a choice. And she’d always known, deep in her heart, her choice had been a selfish one. Telling herself adoption was the right thing to do for her daughter, that it was best for Jessica. When ultimately, all it had been about what was best for her.

  She could have fought for her baby. She could have stood up to her parents and refused to give her up. She could have carved a life out for herself and her child.

  And she hadn’t. She caved. Because she wanted their approval, their love, more than she’d wanted her daughter.

  It was a decision she’d hate herself for making forever.

  Her PA gave her a meaningful look as she came into the office. “You’ve got someone to see you.”

  Victoria didn’t pause. She didn’t have an appointment booked, but whoever it was would get short shrift. She wasn’t in any mood to make nice. “Thanks, Estelle,” she said as she passed the desk. “I’ll deal with it.”

  But as she pushed open the door to her office, her heart just about stopped in her chest.

  Connor was leaning back against her desk, his hands braced on either side of him, fingers gripping the edge.

  It had only been two days since she’d walked out of his kitchen, trying to tell herself it was for the best. Only two short days. Yet as soon as his intense gaze met hers, she felt the weight of all those hours and minutes and seconds without him pile on top of her, heavy as eternity.

  An absurd impulse gripped her. To fling aside her briefcase and launch herself at him. But of course she wasn’t going to. Any physical contact they’d had was over and done with now. No point in going back.

  “What are you doing here?” She kept her tone cool as she calmly closed the door behind her. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “You should have.” His sharp, perceptive gaze didn’t waver. “I told you I wasn’t going to let you go.”

  She took a slow, silent breath, trying to calm the wild beating of her heart. “I don’t want you to fight for me. I didn’t ask you to fight for me.”

  “I know you didn’t. But I’m going to all the same. In fact, you would have seen me again the day you walked out, but I had a few things to do.”

  Carefully she placed her briefcase down on the meeting table near her desk. She wanted to keep hold of it to maintain some kind of barrier between them, but again, that would reveal too much. And she didn’t want to give him any more in the way of ammunition.

  “What things?”

  “I had to tie up the loose ends of the case I’m dealing with now.” He shifted against the desk and she tried not to notice the way the wool of his suit trousers pulled tight around his powerful thighs, or how the black belt he wore emphasized his lean hips.

  Hunger turned over inside her, just as powerful, just as insistent as it had been before. As if the past few days hadn’t done a thing.

  You’ll never stop wanting him.

  “What case?” she asked, trying to drown out the voice in her head.

  “A young guy who shot his father. The police are trying to bring a murder charge but we’ve had some evidence turn up that’s going to make that impossible.” He paused, staring at her. “I’ve passed the case on to someone else. In fact, I should never have taken it on in the first place considering the conflict of interest. But I did because you were right, it was part of my crusade.” His gaze was very direct. “I’ve been trying to atone. And I thought I could achieve that by punishing people for their crimes. That’s been the focus of my life ever since I got into law school. That’s been the way I dealt with what happened to Dad.” He hesitated. “But then you told me something different. You told me I was only defending myself, protecting my mother. That it was survival. And you were… Christ, Victoria, you were so damn sure. So damn certain. And I was afraid to believe you. Because what if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not wrong,” she said in a thick voice. She couldn’t look away from him. There was something in his face that was different. An intensity that didn’t come from anger this time, but from certainty. Surety.

  “I know you’re not. That’s why I’ve decided I want to take that chance.” He was quiet but no less certain. “I’ve decided to believe you. I’m not like my father and I don’t have to hide or keep myself locked down.” Another pause. “Because you weren’t afraid of me. And if you weren’t afraid, then there’s no reason on earth for me to be.”

  Such measured, logical words. Making so much sense. And yet they cut her to shreds because there was a trust implicit in them she was sure she hadn’t earned.

  She glanced away, blinking away the prick of something that felt suspiciously like tears behind her eyes. “So what does that mean?”

  “I can’t change the past. I can’t take back what I did. But I’m going to stop taking these prosecution cases and look into doing some pro-bono work for people in need instead. Do more family law stuff, I think. Domestic violence. Custody issues. I want to help people trapped in the same kind of situation I was in.” His mouth turned up in a faint, self-deprecating smile. “You need passion for those kinds of cases. You need belief. And you need anger. Especially if you want to make a positive difference to their lives.”

  A bright spark had lit in his eyes, the one she’d seen only in the courtroom. And the hunger sank its claws deeper inside her.

  “That’s great,” she said, toneless and brittle. “I think you’ll be fantastic at it.”

  He didn’t move, nor did he look away. “It’s because of you, Victoria. You understand that, don’t you? If you hadn’t confronted me that night, I doubt I
’d ever have taken this step.”

  “I only made you see what was already there.” She glanced down at her watch to check the time, needing the excuse to look away from him. “Now, have you got anything else to say? I have another meeting in about ten minutes.” A total lie. But she wanted him out of here.

  “I also brought you something.”

  She looked up. “What?”

  He shifted again and picked up a white envelope lying on top of her desk. “This.” And handed it to her.

  Victoria took it and lifted the envelope tab, sliding out the papers inside.

  The divorce papers. Signed.

  Her stomach lurched, an unexpected and bitter disappointment she told herself she didn’t feel. “But you said you would never—”

  “Give you a divorce? I know. But like I said, I’ve been thinking since you left. Make no mistake, Victoria. I meant what I said when I told you I would fight for you. For us. I want you. I want this and I’m going to do my damnedest to make you see that too. But I’m not going to do that by denying you what’s important to you.” He nodded toward the papers she held. “I’ve signed them like you wanted and it’s up to you whether you send them. However, you’re on notice right now I fully intend to seduce the hell out of you and get you to remarry me at the first opportunity.”

  Her throat felt thick. Her chest tight. She turned and put the papers on the meeting table, not wanting to look at them anymore. Keeping her back to him. “Thank you,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. “But you only have two weeks for all of that because I’ll be leaving for England.”

  “Oh, I’ll have more than two weeks. I’ve decided to join you in London.”

  Another shock, like cold water down her back.

  Victoria turned sharply. “What?”

  His gaze was unflinching. “I have a lot of leave I need to use up anyway. It shouldn’t be too difficult to organize.”

  “So you’re going to hand over all your cases just like that? To follow me to London?”

  “You were so certain about me, Victoria. Now it’s my turn to show you how certain I am about you.”

  The heaviness inside her shifted, making her shiver inexplicably. “But…why?”

  He pushed himself away from the desk and before she could move, he’d crossed the space between them. She found herself backed up against the table, the hard heat of him in front of her, the ferocity she’d seen so often in his eyes burning once more. But not this time from anger, but another, far more potent emotion. “Don’t you think you’re worth it? Don’t you think you’re worth fighting for?”

  Something was breaking inside of her and she didn’t know what it was. It frightened her. “You can’t do that,” she said hoarsely. “You can’t give up everything for me.”

  “And you’re avoiding the question.” His voice was gentle, horribly so. “Why shouldn’t I give up everything for you?” He lifted a hand, his fingers brushing her cheekbone.

  And at the touch, the thing that had started to break, that was so very, very fragile after all, began to shatter, to crumble and she didn’t know how to stop it.

  “Connor,” she whispered instead. “Please don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Don’t fight for you? Don’t love you?”

  Her vision blurred. “You don’t understand. I don’t want you to love me. I don’t need it.”

  “I thought I didn’t need it either.” His fingers trailed down the side of her cheek, along her jawline. Tender. Forgiving. “Turns out I do. And I think you do too.”

  She closed her eyes against the sudden, hot rush of tears, coming from a place in her heart she tried to tell herself wasn’t there. “No. Please, no.”

  But he ignored that. “I think you do want it, Victoria. I think you’re desperate for it. But I also think you’re too afraid to take it.”

  She kept her eyes closed. Because it was too hard to look at him. Too hard to accept what he seemed to be offering. “I can’t, Connor. I don’t want to feel like nothing I do is good enough. I don’t want to feel like I’m being measured and found wanting. Like there’s this goal I have to reach to finally be worthy. I’ve been there, done that.” Finally she opened her eyes and looked up at him. “I gave up a piece of myself for love. I gave up Jessica. And it nearly killed me. I can’t do it again.”

  “But I’m not asking you to give up anything, Victoria. I just want you, exactly as you are. I want the intellectual, intelligent, brilliant woman I married. And the passionate, sexy, dirty girl I’ve only just discovered. All those different parts of you, I want them. I want to discover and explore them. You don’t have to be anything else, anyone else, but who you already are.”

  A lone tear escaped one corner of her eye, trailing in a hot line down her cheek. And she opened her eyes. “Connor…” Her voice failed. It felt like she’d been hungry for so long, her needs grown so vast and complex, she couldn’t even give names to them. “It’s just… My parents…wanted big things from me. And they worked so hard to give me opportunities and I…” She let out a shaken breath. “I never felt equal to all the sacrifices they made. I never asked for them. I never wanted them. I just wanted… I just wanted them to love me, not give up their whole lives for me.” She swallowed, hating the needy sound in her voice. “But they did and then I got pregnant. And I wanted that baby so much. So goddamn much.” A deep, visceral pain twisted inside her, a pain she’d never been able to outrun no matter how hard she tried.

  Connor didn’t speak. He only reached to brush away the tear, his touch gentle against her skin.

  “They wouldn’t help me,” she whispered, the touch breaking her a little more. “They said I wouldn’t be able to take care of her, that she’d be better off with people who could give her the life she deserved. And they’d worked too hard to see me throw away the opportunities they’d given me.” The pain twisted again, harder. “So I gave her up. And I’ve been telling myself over and over that was the right choice. The only one. But I always knew the choice I was making wasn’t for her. It was for me.” The words cracked, the pain inside leaking out.

  “Victoria,” he murmured. “Don’t—”

  But she didn’t let him finish. “I could have fought. I could have said no. I could have kept her. But I didn’t.” Another tear fell down her cheek. “I was too afraid of losing what I had.”

  The look in his eyes was so full of understanding she could hardly bear it. “You were only sixteen, sweetheart,” he said softly. “And that’s not the kind of choice any sixteen-year-old should have to make, let alone punish herself over for so many years.”

  “But it was the wrong one.” She couldn’t stop the tears now; they were coming fast. Too many to blink away. Too many to pretend she wasn’t crying. That her heart wasn’t breaking. “I made the wrong choice. And I lost her, Connor. I lost her.” The admission felt torn from her, a splinter of glass taking out what felt like the last piece of her soul. And she was breaking. Falling apart right in front of him.

  Yet his arms came around her, taking her in a grip so strong, so certain it was as if he’d never let her go. Holding her together as she broke. Keeping her safe.

  And she cried. All the pain she’d never let herself feel. All the anguish she’d been fighting for so many years. And the aching, aching regret that never went away.

  After a long time, when all the tears she’d never let herself cry had finally ceased and she felt empty and cleaned out, light and fragile as a blown egg, she rested her head against his chest, listening to the deep, slow beat of his heart. “It’s why I wanted to go to London,” she said at last, her voice thick. “It’s why I pushed myself in my career. That was my crusade. I had to make that choice mean something.”

  “I understand that, but you can’t keep punishing yourself for a decision you made when you were sixteen, Victoria.” His voice was a deep rumble in her ear. “If you w
ant a crusade, if you want to make giving her up mean something, then it’s not career success you should be pursuing.”

  She lifted her head at that and looked up at him. “Then what?”

  He touched her hair, his palm sliding around to the back of her head, cradling her. “Passion. Happiness. Love. Even all of the above.” He smiled, slow and brilliant. A smile she’d never seen before. “We’re not our parents and their expectations. We’re ourselves. We can make our own rules, set our own expectations. We can decide who we want to be.” His smile deepened. “And who I want to be is your husband.”

  Damn lawyers and their excellent arguments. “Connor…”

  “What about you? Who do you want to be, Victoria? What do you want?”

  She’d thought she’d come to the end of her tears. She was wrong. Her eyes felt hot and prickly, her throat aching. He’d always been a brilliant man. She just hadn’t ever imagined quite how brilliant. “I want to be worthy.”

  “It’s not about worthiness. It’s about acceptance.” His fingers caught her chin, holding her firmly. “Do you love me?”

  For a second she wished she could lie. But there was no lying about the feeling that curled around her bones, twining around her soul. That had grown too big now for denial. “Yes.” The word came out as a croak.

  “Then love me. And let me love you in return.”

  Eleanor was right. It was simple. He was here. And she wanted him. Just him, nothing more, nothing less.

  “When we first got married, I thought you were the safe option,” she said shakily. “You were intellectual and ambitious and that was very attractive to me. But then, two years ago, I saw you in court and you were… God, I’d never seen anything like it. All this passion seemed to come out of you, all this intensity. You seduced the jury into a guilty verdict and me right along with them. I wanted you so badly after that.” She leaned into him, into the heat of his body. “It terrified me because I didn’t want to feel like that, not for you, not for anyone. I thought if I ignored it I’d get over it and it would fade. But it never did.” She swallowed. “I still feel it and I’m still afraid.”