Chapter Thirteen
AXEL WAS ON his back, scraped clean of thought while his body was still recovering from lovemaking that had been intense even by the standard he and Joy usually set. His heart was still hammering, his chest billowing as his lungs snatched for oxygen.
She was on the pill now so he didn’t have an excuse to roll away to remove the condom.
He was too weak to do something like that anyway.
And he couldn’t do that to her. He might not know how to return that emotion, but if Joy was offering it to him, he couldn’t reject it.
Not when he knew how sensitive she was to being scorned.
But, I love you?
It shouldn’t hurt like an acid burn, but it did.
“I didn’t mean to say that,” she whispered in an agonized voice.
“Did you mean it?” He turned his head on the pillow. “It’s only been six weeks.”
“I know.” Her brow flinched, and her lashes dropped to hide her eyes. “I know that you…don’t.”
He looked to the ceiling, experiencing a new version of an old emotion: helplessness. He hated to hurt her and didn’t know how to avoid it. It made him feel powerless—another emotion he couldn’t bear.
His whole reason for marrying her had been to prevent Otto from taking advantage of him, but more frequently these days, he felt as though he’d taken advantage of Joy, building expectations in her that he couldn’t fulfill.
“Joy—” He started to roll toward her, not sure what he would say, but she turned her back on him.
“I should get some sleep. Inga has already let a couple of dancers go. I want to be on my game tomorrow.” She reached to turn out the light on her side.
He bit back a curse, aware he’d handled this badly but unsure how to fix it.
* * *
Things remained stilted between them. Axel was frustrated and mentally likened it to the way a storm or other natural event might thwart a project. It couldn’t be changed or undone. It could only be weathered.
His mechanical brain wanted to find the solution, though. Or a way to prevent something like this from happening in future.
He channeled all his brooding into his new company, AxSev Engineering.
One of the key differences between himself and Otto was that Otto was a businessman who had taken over his father’s engineering firm. Axel was an engineer who had become a businessman. Otto had also been born into wealth. He’d had a cushion to fall back on, so he was more comfortable with risk.
Axel had always taken a more methodical approach to his life, carefully amassing his material wealth to lay a foundation to support his next level.
He brought the same attitude to his new company.
Each investor and employee and potential project was inspected for quality and durability, like a brick in a structure he wanted to last for a thousand years.
Which wasn’t to say things weren’t happening quickly. He’d been deliberating on this for years. He knew what he wanted and took profound satisfaction in tapping every brick into place.
He could have been doing this two years ago, of course, but his resentment toward Otto over the delay had lost much of its edge, worn away by something he hadn’t expected: Joy.
How could he hate Otto for procrastinating and manipulating him into this marriage when he liked being married to her?
At least he had liked it, before this discord had arisen between them.
He wanted to smooth things over, but Joy wasn’t here. Even before this, she had been spending a lot of time at the studio and the fitness center, swimming laps to improve her endurance in a way that wouldn’t cause her stress injuries.
She was determined to achieve her goals, and he admired her for that, but recognized a small jealousy inside himself over how much of her time was monopolized by it.
He didn’t want to feel threatened by it, but he did—maybe because he suspected she was using it to avoid him.
He’d hurt her by not returning her love, and she had withdrawn.
The weight of being loved was so damned crushing, though.
One of his earliest memories was his father saying, Your Mutti loves you.
She’s counting on you to look after her when I’m not here.
Then his father had disappeared for a few weeks—serving time, Axel learned much later.
What little money had been in his mother’s purse had disappeared quickly, leaving Axel to scrounge food from a dumpster behind the grocer.
After his father died, his mother had said similar things countless times.
You’re a good boy for taking care of me.
I love you. But those words had never put food on the table.
Even when she’d finally embraced sobriety, her love had only felt like something that imposed a certain duty on him.
I know I was not the best mother to you, but I love you. I hope you’ll forgive me.
Axel was doing Joy a favor by not putting that sort of indebtedness on her. He met all her real needs, didn’t he? He was giving her a very good life. Wasn’t he?
He entered the penthouse to hear her upstairs, talking to someone. Her sister-in-law, it sounded like, judging by the excited babble of a toddler and the gurgle of laughter in Joy’s tone.
“Okay, go show Abuela so I can talk with Tía,” Carrie was saying as Axel reached the top of the stairs. “He misses you as much as I do, but get back to your text. She wants you as the lead?”
“One of them, yes. I’m very excited.”
“That’s fantastic! Congratulations! How are you going to celebrate?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Joy said in a downplaying tone. “We have a party to go to this evening. I don’t know the hosts, but these things are important to Axel, so I’ll probably just buy myself a new leotard tomorrow. As if I need more of those!” She chuckled at herself.
“You deserve more than that,” her sister-in-law chided. “This is a big deal. We’ll do something big when you’re here. We’ll have a lot to celebrate by then.”
“We will—Oh. Axel’s home.” Joy noticed him. The glow in her eyes dimmed to wariness, and her tone changed to the aloof one he was beginning to despite. “What time is the party?” she asked him. “I can be ready in twenty.”
She wore her bathrobe. Her hair was pulled back from her freshly washed face, and she was midway through applying makeup.
“We have lots of time. Finish your call. Hello, Carrie.” He stepped into view of the screen.
“Hi, Axel. It’s good to see you, but I’ll let you go,” the very pregnant Carrie said. “I have to get ready for work. I was just excited when I saw Joy’s text and wanted to congratulate her. Buy your wife some flowers,” she instructed. “I’ll talk to you both soon.”
The women blew kisses at each other, and Joy ended the call.
“You got in?” Axel asked. “For the performance?”
“I did.” A little of the sparkle returned to her eyes, and she couldn’t seem to fight the grin that pulled at her lips as she added with shy pride, “As one of the leads.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” The fact she seemed to have texted her family without telling him was a surprisingly deep cut.
“I was going to tell you when I saw you.” She sounded defensive and turned back to her makeup and the mirror.
“Well, I’m proud of you.” He drew her back around and into a hug, even picked her up.
She stiffened in surprise as he turned in a circle and set her back on her feet, then she released a soft laugh of surprise, flustered and blushing. “Thank you.” Her expression shifted into earnestness. “I couldn’t have done it without you so, really. Thank you.”
“Don’t say that.” He knew what dance meant to her. He was glad that he had some tiny part in making this happen for her, but he squeezed her shoulders and rubbed the soft velour of the robe down her arms. “You did the work to earn it.”
“I know, but…” She shrugged, then shifted away from his touch.
He simply couldn’t stand it any longer. “Carrie is right. We should celebrate. Let’s skip the party and spend the weekend in Heiligendamm. The days are warm enough for beachcombing. It won’t be overrun with tourists yet.”
She lifted her gaze, properly meeting his eyes for the first time in days while her brow quirked with tentative optimism. “Really?”
If it meant she would quit avoiding him? “Yes.”
* * *
They left within the hour, taking a helicopter to an elegant resort on the Baltic Sea.
Joy had been wallowing in misery for days. She had been okay with being in a loveless marriage before she’d fallen in love herself. Before she’d said it.
Maybe, if she hadn’t had a bone-deep legacy of being rejected, she could have withstood Axel’s rebuff more easily, but she kept wondering whether she was actually lovable. Yes, her family loved her, but they didn’t fully understand her. The man who did understand her didn’t love her.
The one thing that had saved her this week was dance. It had given her an outlet for her sorrow and loneliness and yearning and unrequited feelings. Inga had hugged her when she offered her the lead, calling her “one of our brightest stars.”
In the dance studio, at least, she was truly wanted. Integral, even.
She wasn’t sure if Axel was trying to spoil her to make up for their fight—which hadn’t even been a fight.
She was glad to spend time with him. She loved him.
Of course she wanted to be with him, but she also felt as though she walked around without a layer of skin, everything feeling raw and exposed.
She was instantly charmed by the historic buildings, though, all painted white.
He had booked them into a tower suite of a luxury hotel, one with two floors and endless views of the water.
She couldn’t help but relax as they strolled the beach before dinner, then wilted themselves in the sauna.
The next day, they had a couple’s massage, walked, ate delicious food and made love.