Jax poured himself a stiff drink and drank it down. He had to tell Lucy. How could he not tell her? He reminded himself that she had married him even after what he had done in Spain. He reminded himself that she seemed happy. He didn’t have to love her to make her happy. Hadn’t he already proved that? Together they had the fathers from hell. Not her fault, not his fault either. He would give her the facts. She would be angry and hurt but she would forgive him. Jax knew he wasn’t the forgiving type but he was convinced from recent experience that Lucy was. They had signed up to be a family for Bella’s benefit. And that would be Lucy’s bottom line because more than anything else, Jax reminded himself doggedly, after a life of turmoil Lucy craved security.
And he offered security, he offered a lot of security, he reflected with growing assurance. But it still really bothered him that she wasn’t clingier and more open with him. The Lucy he remembered in Spain had been distinctly needy and clingy and, although he ran a mile from that trait in other women, for some reason he had liked that attribute in Lucy as much as he had liked her once flaky tell-all chatter. He had liked it when he was the first person she looked for in a room, when he was the only one she really smiled at or noticed, when she wrapped herself round him all night as though she was afraid he might attempt an escape. He had liked being told that he was loved even if in the end it had all turned out to be a lie.
But she didn’t do those things any more even though he wanted her to. She was wary. Of course she was, he conceded, struggling to be fair, so, putting the truth out there was a sensible move, he told himself squarely. He would tell her what had really happened and she would forgive him because that was what Lucy did. And what choice would she have? a more cynical voice enquired. After all, she had betrayed his trust too...
* * *
‘He’s treating you well?’ Kreon prompted while Iola was playing in the garden with Bella.
‘Yes,’ Lucy told her father flatly. ‘But I won’t discuss Jax with you.’
‘A wife should be loyal to her husband,’ Kreon remarked equably. ‘I simply wanted you to be happy—’
‘I can only be happy with a man who is happy to be with me,’ Lucy countered drily, resisting the urge to remind him that he hadn’t thought of that angle.
But with Jax being the very practical but reserved male that he was, he was more likely to make the best of a bad job than try to wriggle out of the commitment, particularly when his daughter was involved. Lucy showered and changed while telling herself that she had absolutely nothing to complain about. Whatever else, she was married to the love of her life. There was nothing she could do about the fact that she had only gained a wedding ring through her father’s dirty tricks. But she knew that somewhere in the back of Jax’s astute brain he would probably always associate her with her father’s treachery and would never quite forgive her for his lack of choice and loss of freedom.
‘He gave in to me very easily. That is not an Antonakos trait,’ Kreon argued.
‘Obviously he cares about his father.’
‘I believe he cares more about you.’
Unconvinced by that startling claim, Lucy returned to the city villa with nerves run ragged by the strain of pretending for Iola’s benefit that everything was fine between her father and her. She had been surprised that Jax hadn’t objected to her visiting Kreon and Iola and then relieved because her father was still her father even though he was imperfect. Imperfect? Manipulative, sneaky, quick to jump on a golden opportunity even if it entailed blackmail, Lucy’s brain added unhappily. But until she had met her father and learned about the existence of her sisters, she had believed that her father was her only living relative and his support and acceptance had meant a great deal to her. That he was capable of going to such lengths to secure a very rich husband for her still devastated her because of course it had to make a difference to her marriage and the light in which Jax saw her.
If Kreon hadn’t interfered, who knew what might have happened? All right, they would clearly not have got married, she allowed ruefully, but at least Jax wouldn’t have felt forced into doing something he didn’t want to do.
Lucy had only just finished drying her hair when Jax strode into the bedroom. He paused for a second, appreciating the sight of her small slender figure in a summery blue dress, tumbling ringlets framing her piquant face. ‘You look ridiculously pretty,’ he heard himself say stiltedly, and he almost winced at that ill-timed opener because he had come upstairs to give her the investigation file.
Lucy angled her head to one side and gave him a questioning look. ‘You never pay me compliments. What’s wrong?’
He had called her pretty, not beautiful, and she was more than happy with that, well aware that her looks weren’t on the beauty level. In marrying Jax, she had boxed above her weight because he was the beautiful one in their relationship, standing there in his exquisitely tailored silver-grey suit, his stunning bone structure accentuated by a shadow of black stubble, gorgeous green eyes glittering like stars in his lean bronzed face.
‘Never?’ Jax was taken aback by her claim, only belatedly recognising that she was right. He thought such things but he very rarely voiced them out loud. ‘I have something for you to read.’
He looked so very serious that Lucy’s heart gave a sudden lurch inside her chest. ‘OK,’ she said apprehensively.
He extended the file. ‘My father sent this to me two years ago in Spain. It’s why I didn’t turn up that last night.’
Lucy grasped the slim file and sank down heavily on the foot of the bed. ‘Your father?’ she queried with a bemused frown.
‘He had discovered who your father was and apparently he was determined to break us up,’ Jax explained flatly. ‘The file is filled with what I now know to be lies about you.’
Lucy lowered her shaken gaze to the file, thoroughly off balanced by what he was revealing because it was coming at her out of nowhere. Suddenly he was talking about what had happened in Spain and admitting that he hadn’t ditched her simply because he had got bored. ‘You now know...?’ she questioned with an uncertain questioning glance.
‘I had my own investigation carried out,’ he admitted smoothly.
And Lucy was even more shaken at the enormous amount of stuff that Jax had been hiding from her, not to mention the lowering reality of just how much his father had not wanted her in his family. She swallowed hard and, breathing in bracingly, she opened the file and straight away she could not credit what she was reading. It was a seriously exaggerated character assassination in print, from the outrageous allegation that she had convictions for drug dealing and soliciting sex to the fact that her age was quoted as being twenty-five.
‘But how could you possibly have believed any of this?’ she heard herself whisper with incredulous emphasis.
‘It was in the early stages of my new relationship with my father and I trusted him. I had no reason to be suspicious of his motives because I had no knowledge of his acquaintance with your father or his dislike of him,’ he pointed out flatly.
Lucy shook her head very slowly, an almost dazed light in her luminous blue eyes as she focussed on him. ‘You misunderstood my question. I’m not asking why you believed your father but how on earth you could believe that kind of nonsense about me? Soliciting sex? I was a virgin when we met!’ she reminded him with sudden resentful heat. ‘And you knew that!’
Jax compressed
