5. Their Failing, Not Yours #2
He wasn’t really wrong. Her siblings were all right—better than their parents, at least—but none of them truly cared for her.
Not really. Not enough to want her around.
Her brother and sister thought of her as an afterthought.
With her being so much younger than them, they had never really connected, not as most siblings did.
And her parents had never attempted to hide their disappointment in her.
Unplanned and unwanted, they'd never known what to do with her. She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall as memories of her cold mother flooded in uninvited. Nash’s eyes narrowed on hers, his jaw flexing as he gritted his teeth. His eyes dropped to the watch on his wrist.
"I think it's time we let your family know about the wedding. We are going to have it next weekend."
He dropped that bombshell as if he hadn’t just shaken her to her very foundation. But that didn’t stop him—he just kept going.
"We need to get going. We're having dinner with your family in one hour."
Her eyes bulged, her body freezing as fear raged through her like an icy inferno.
Slowly, she looked down at herself. She blinked back tears—her mother had a sharp and vicious tongue, one she would not hesitate to employ in order to eviscerate Iris for how she had let herself go.
Her hair had split ends to top it all off.
She had no doubt that the formidable Mrs. Blackworth would hold nothing back when voicing her displeasure.
"Why?" she managed to croak out. "I thought you said we would give it some time before we saw them?" she asked, her voice thick.
He narrowed his eyes on her as he studied her, staying silent for long moments.
"You could send them an invitation, and we can just see them at the wedding. You said I didn’t have to see them until I wanted to." His eyes flashed, as if her words affected him deeply. Hope sprung up within her, but his next words dashed that hope.
"I did say that, but things have changed." If she didn't know any better, she could have believed he felt bad about that. Her lips twisted bitterly. But she did know better.
"What things?"
"Nothing you need to be concerned with." He shut her down coldly. Just like he was inside. Frozen to the core.
She blanched at his cold words, and she could see his knuckles turn white from how hard he clenched his fist.
"You don’t need to be afraid of them. Or care about their good opinion. All of them combined aren’t worth half of you." His eyes bore into hers. "You are so far above them. Trust me. They are nothing but genetic donors, not worth your concern."
His words, while meant to reassure her, were cold and bitten out through clenched teeth.
They did little to calm her down, but she knew it was much too late for calm.
By the look in his eyes, she knew there was nothing she could do to change his mind.
She didn’t want to go, but that didn’t count for much.
Like a slap to the face, she was rudely reminded of how little control over her own life she now had. A deep depression fell over her as she fully realized what being his wife would be like.
Nash, to his credit, seemed to be watching her closely. When her face lost all color and a tear fell down her cheek, he stood up with barely leashed rage.
"I will protect you," he said as he crossed the room to take a seat on the couch next to her. "Do you really think that I will allow them to insult you? They wouldn’t dare."
She blinked sad eyes at him. "You won’t be able to stop them. They never liked me before, but once they see me now..." She trailed off as angry images of her mother’s screaming face flashed through her mind.
"What? What will they do now?" he prompted when she had been silent for too long.
"She’ll hate me," she whispered, heartbroken. Nash walked over and took her hand. Pulling her out after him. Her mind felt hazy, she barely noticed the trip down to the car. Next thing she knew, she was out of the building and ducking into a car.
Iris felt her breaths coming faster and faster.
The sleek interior of the sedan she sat in felt like little more than a gilded cage.
Try as she might, she couldn't stop her hands from twisting the hem of her dress into knots as the city lights blurred past. The smooth leather beneath her was cold and unyielding.
Fitting, then, as she was sure she was going to be seeing her mother again for the first time in three years.
Her whole body jumped when Nash's hand came down to settle on her knee with a proprietary weight. His skin was warm, comforting, fighting back the cold that seeped into her heart. When did the man she had run from become her ally?
"Relax, Iris," he said, his voice low and even, commanding silence from the storm inside her. And just like the rest of her, her anxiety listened to him instinctually. "I told you, everything is going to be fine."
She looked down at his hand, fingers digging ever so slightly into the skin of her thigh.
The divots caught in the passing glow of street lamps, showing off his lean fingers that were rougher than she would have expected.
The knuckles even seemed to have light bruising.
His nails, though, were smooth—cut close and perfectly maintained.
So unlike her own nails—chipped polish that she had applied to herself and Daisy a mere four days ago.
Why, she had no idea. Perhaps she had been trying to regain some semblance of the image of a socialite.
His touch, which had started out soothing, instead shifted into something else. Her inner thoughts refused to stay quiet for long. His touch now began amplifying the hum of anxiety that held her hostage.
"I'm trying," she whispered, her voice brittle and breakable, as if it was nothing more than paper-thin ice. "But they'll see right through me, Nash. And they'll hate what they see," she choked out.
"No, they won't."
"They always do." Her eyes, wide and fearful, met his across the backseat.
He leaned closer, his presence enveloping her. His eyes burned into hers, his warm breath puffing out against her lips as he spoke.
"Let them look," he murmured, his breath a warm caress against her cheek. "They don't get to claim you. You're you despite their influence. You are a conundrum. You shouldn't be as good as you are, and yet, here you are."
"What do you mean?" Iris asked softly, hopeful despite herself.
"They treated you horribly. Worse than I ever suspected.
" His face fell into a fierce glare. "If you didn't love them despite it all, I would light a match on their sinking ship and happily watch it all burn to the fucking ground.
But instead, I am going to save them from their own mismanagement.
" His voice exposed how he felt about that.
He hated it. She could tell that he wanted them to suffer the consequences.
But he wasn't. For her. "You're too kindhearted for your own good.
" Her breath hitched in her lungs, his words soothing something broken deep inside.
She had always known that her family was colder than most to her, but that was mostly just her parents. Her siblings weren't overly affectionate, but they were never cruel. Not like Mother.
"My siblings love me," she insisted with a weak voice, not even believing it herself. "At least, I want them to love me."
"I know you do, ma fleur," he whispered, brushing her hair back over her ear with a gentle movement.
"And your brother and sister are more tolerable than either of your parents.
Had Ash inherited the company before your father ran it into the ground, he most likely would have managed to keep it running just fine.
Unfortunately, that's not what happened. "
"I can't believe Dad was so careless with our family legacy," she murmured, her words full of remembered pain. "He was always the first to tell me that he knew I would disgrace the Blackworth name. I tried so hard to prove him wrong."
"We both know you're worth more than their approval.
" His hand cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him.
"It's alright to want them to be proud of you.
Every child craves parental approval. But you need to accept that they will never give it.
And that is their failing, not yours. You are a gift to the Blackworth name. "
Iris's heart skipped, tripping over beats as she fought back tears.
"To you, maybe. But to them..." She swallowed hard, her throat tight with unspoken truths.
"I've only ever been a disappointment. That's all I'll ever be.
Too loud, too happy, too fat, too opinionated, too headstrong...
too everything. I could never be the demure, pretty wallflower they wanted. "
A muscle twitched in Nash's jaw, his grip tightening momentarily before he smoothed his thumb in a slow, deliberate stroke over her quivering lip—a silent vow she couldn't decipher.
Was he vowing to protect her? Calm her? Or perhaps...
was it a claim? A statement of possession?
His eyes never left hers, and something she saw in them answered her unspoken question.
Possession. But, wrapped up within it, was the promise of protection.
He would guard what was his, and regardless of how it came about, she couldn't refute that she was his.
And, shockingly, in the course of mere days, she was beginning to be thankful for that fact.
She felt alive in a way she hadn't felt like in three years.
Maybe Arizona wasn't the haven she told herself it was.