Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
TAMSYN
The force of his anger and rage—his malice—nearly causes me to keel over in shock. I wanted to see what’s inside him, yeah, but there’s no preparing for those twisted features and flashing eyes. I never thought his handsome face hid a gargoyle of bitterness.
“You…” I press a hand to my heart because there’s a real danger of my going into cardiac arrest as I try to make this all compute. I can’t separate Lucien from his love for Ravenna. It’s an immutable fact about him. He might as well say that he’s not a man or that he doesn’t have gray eyes. The world just doesn’t work that way. Those things are true whether he admits them or not. Plus, I’ve heard the stories about their legendary love. I’ve seen pictures of the happy couple on their wedding day. Was all that a lie? Was the grieving widower the same sort of fiction as a Harry Potter book? How is that possible? “What?”
“You heard me.” His voice is still rough, but he seems calmer now. I’d almost say there’s something triumphant about him. Something… free . “From the day I met Ravenna until the day she disappeared—hell, way beyond the day she disappeared—she made my life a living hell.”
“Oh my God.”
“She ran hot and then she ran cold.” He pauses, trying to get enough control over his sneering mouth to finish his thought. “She pulled me close and then she pushed me away. She loved me harder than I thought I could ever be loved, and then she taunted me twice as hard. I never knew where I stood with her. I just always knew that I was on cracking ice.”
I can only shake my head. There’s no way to reconcile this narrative with what I read online about him and always believed to be true. And I’m not the only one. Mrs. Hooper also believed it. She’s the one who told me they had a fairytale marriage that left Lucien broken when she died. Nor can I square what he’s saying with the wounded and vulnerable woman I’ve been caring for all night. Ravenna did all this ? I just can’t believe any of it.
“How can that be true, Lucien? You were married to her for, what, eight years before she disappeared? Why didn’t you leave?”
A helpless shrug, after which it takes him several excruciating forevers to piece together his answer.
“At first? I didn’t believe what I was seeing.” He waves a hand at me. “Just like you are right now. Don’t get me wrong. We had a nice, long honeymoon period at first. She was more sweetness and light then.” There’s another painful pause while his jaw tightens. “My family tried to warn me about her. They said things were moving too fast. Hell, Roman begged me to get a prenuptial agreement in place before the wedding. He always had a bad feeling about her.” A hollow laugh. “But I knew better. I didn’t listen. And she came from family money herself, so I didn’t think she was after mine.”
That makes some sense, but not enough. “But… Just because she was moody doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, Lucien.”
“Moody?” He makes a strangled sound. “She was cruel . She did everything she could to make me jealous. She rubbed my face in every man who tried to hit on her. She flirted right in front of me. It ate me up inside.”
“Wait.” I stiffen. Lucien is the sexiest and most intriguing man imaginable. He’s smart, funny, handsome and endlessly fascinating. It’s inconceivable that anyone in their right mind would ever treat him that way. He’s more than enough for anyone. “She cheated on you?”
“I never had proof either way.” A dull flush rises over his cheeks. It seems to cost him a great deal of effort to maintain eye contact. “The suspicion was bad enough. And I was a fool to put up with the partying. The drugs.”
It takes me a minute to put together a response because I just don’t buy it. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I know what it costs such a proud man to admit something like this. And it’s not that I think he’s lying. I can see that he truly believes it. But I just can’t. I know women cheat sometimes. I’m not a fool. But I find it much easier to believe that a man like Lucien would cheat long before his wife would. What kind of fool would cheat on him ?
“You don’t believe me,” he says, nostrils flaring. “Admit it.”
Honestly, he looks so unhinged right now. He sounds so paranoid. I don’t know what to think. “But… You have all the resources in the world. Why didn’t you hire someone to follow her? Or just kick her out and be done with it?”
Another hollow laugh. “That’s easy. Pride. I’m supposed to be this powerful man. You think I wanted to admit to the world what was going on behind closed doors? It was hard enough to admit it to myself and to discuss it when I hired the private investigators.”
“I know you hate to admit it, but I just can’t believe you never wanted to divorce her if she put you through all that.”
“Oh, I did. I’d had it. Two days before she disappeared in her boating accident, we had it out. I told her it was over. That I wanted a divorce. But she said she’d never let me go. And the next thing I know, she disappeared.”
“Wait, what?” I say, incredulity getting the best of me again. “Are you saying you think she faked all this to get out of you divorcing her?”
He levels that hard gaze on me. “I’m saying that painful experience has taught me to never underestimate what Ravenna will do to maintain control. To win .”
I stare at this man I thought I knew, if only a little bit, my head spinning. He looks so serious and sounds so delusional. Ravenna seems so normal and fragile. Who would fake their own death to get out of a divorce? How could anyone possibly get away with it? Yet Lucien believes it. And I've always believed Lucien.
“Oh my God,” I say, collapsing on the sofa. My knees suddenly feel way too wobbly to keep me upright. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“Believe me .”
“My head is spinning,” I say, putting my elbows on my knees and resting my head in my hands.
“I know it is, angel.” His voice sounds softer as he comes over to sit beside me. “I hate that you’re in the middle of my mess. And you’re even taking care of her. Despite everything.”
“Because I’m a nurse,” I say, sitting up and bristling at the implication that I’d ever do otherwise.
His expression radiates unmistakable admiration. “Because you’re an amazing woman.”
“You’re taking care of her, too, despite your feelings for her. I guess that makes both of us amazing.”
“I’m not amazing,” he says, sounding gravelly now. “I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
“Same.”
The conversation tapers off after that. So there we are, staring into each other’s eyes at close range. He seems kind again. Calm. Loving. The clean and woodsy scent of his cologne smells so familiar. Everything feels normal, if you temporarily ignore the part about his resurrected wife and her insane backstory. And it’s such a relief for him to be right there, within arm’s reach, and to know that he still wants me. Despite everything.
His attention flickers down to my mouth. He leans closer, ducking his head into kissing range. “Tamsyn…”
I find my eyes drifting closed and my chin tipping up. My world is rainbows and silk sheets again. Until that split second when his fingertips brush my cheek and a jagged spark of sensation jolts me back to my senses.
What are you doing, Tamsyn? What the hell are you doing ?
I turn my head at the last possible second. “ Don’t. ”
He rumbles with frustration but backs off immediately. “I can’t touch you now?”
It’s a good thing I’m not looking in his face. It’s hard enough hearing the wounded note in his voice without also seeing it there. “Your resurrected and injured wife is down the hall. I’m the interloper in her home. In her marriage. I’m trying to do the right thing here. Please make it easy for me.”
He slumps against the back of the sofa. A long silence follows. Then there’s a harsh sigh. “Fine. But don’t leave. Please.”
I make a disbelieving sound and turn back to him. “It’s not like I want to leave. But how can I stay?”
“Because I’m going to divorce her,” he says, hunching down in my face, so I can see how dead serious he is. “We would’ve been long divorced by now if she hadn’t disappeared.”
He’s saying all the right things, and it all sounds like the answer to my prayers. But I can’t plan my happiness on someone else’s misfortune. “You can’t just divorce her. She’s clearly been through trauma. She needs you.”
“And I need you ,” he says fervently and huskily.
I wish I could tell you that I’m immune when he unleashes all that intensity on me. That I keep my focus locked in on the morality of the situation the way Dad would have wanted me to. But I’d be lying.
“You’re being selfish, Lucien.”
“And you’re being noble.” Another glimmer of admiration from him. “Which I knew you would be.”
“How noble is it to want to take someone’s husband and keep him for yourself? I’m not proud. I just need to be able to look myself in the mirror.”
“That’s not noble?”
“It’s not noble to be jealous of an injured woman.”
“Then I guess we’re in this together, because it’s not noble to plan on ditching your injured wife as soon as possible,” he says grimly, setting his jaw. “But watch me.”
That sounds so harsh. “Lucien…”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, blowing out a breath. “I’ll get her back on her feet. And I’ll take care of her financially in the divorce. I’ll make it worth her while. Which I would have done before she disappeared. But I don’t trust her. Not for one second. And you shouldn’t either.”
The warning note in his voice is sobering, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry than my trying to be besties with his wife. “I just don’t know how you think this is all going to work.”
“Stay while I figure it out. Give me a little time to get her settled somewhere else as soon as she’s recovered and back on her feet. Meanwhile, I’ll take her to the hospital for evaluation in the morning. I’ll call the police. I’ll call my divorce lawyers. I’ll get it all straightened out if you give me time.” He pauses. “But I want you to stay here at Ackerley. I want to show it to you. I want us to spend the summer together like we planned. Say you will. Please.”
I hesitate, but it’s not as if I’ve ever successfully told him no. Especially when he hits me with that beseeching tone. “Fine. But I’m staying in the guest cottage.”
He frowns. “Tamsyn…”
“Take it or leave it.”
“Fine,” he says with a wry smile that quickly fades away in favor of something far more challenging to my shaky equilibrium. “But do me a favor.”
I can’t shake my head fast enough. I know that look. I’m well acquainted with all that banked intensity. But I don’t plan to succumb to it. Not this time. I need to keep my wits about me, and I can’t do that if I throw myself into our scorching chemistry every time he twinkles his eyes at me.
“No, Lucien,” I say, but my heart isn’t in it.
He ignores me and shifts closer again. “I just need to hold you for a second.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
“Maybe, but it’s been a tough day.” He swallows hard, his attention dipping to my lips once more. “Don’t say no.”
I gave it a decent effort, but there was never any real question about it. I’m already leaning toward him, my arms coming up. Lucien being Lucien, he takes a thousand miles when I planned to give him half an inch. He runs those gentle hands around to my back and finds his way to my nape before helping himself to handfuls of my hair as he pulls me up against him. He presses his lips to my temple and breathes me in as though I smell like something other than dried rain and overwhelmed antiperspirant at this point in the proceedings. He shudders with something that feels like relief, generating an involuntary croon from me in response. And I’m part of the problem, too. I admit it. It’s just that my arms remember what it feels like to twine around his neck and my breasts always crave the unyielding hardness of his chest.
He always holds me tight. But I can never quite get close enough.
The worst thing about this stolen moment is the tiny flicker of hope that burns anew inside me, gathering oxygen. Because now I know that there’s a chance for me. Ravenna isn’t the love of his life after all. That position is still open.
It’s a ridiculous thing to think in that stolen moment, but I think it anyway. There’s still hope for me.
That’s when I catch myself, remembering that I’m a foolish young woman who’s gotten herself into a domestic shitstorm. Everyone who ever had an affair with a married man thinks that it’ll work out for her. That she’ll be the special snowflake who gets the Cinderella ending. And I don’t want to be that fool, but I know I already am.
Luckily, the knowledge is ice in my veins.
“That’s enough,” I say, pushing free, standing and pulling my hand away when he tries to reel me back in. I turn away before I glimpse the disappointment in his expression, but there’s no need to see it when I feel it down to my bones. I don’t know how we think things could possibly work out between us. Worse, I don’t know what makes us foolish enough to try. “I need to check on my patient.”