gave me the position that was always meant to be his, and our father had to accept that. I don’t expect him to like it, ever, but it is now a fact. Before long there’ll be contracts—’
‘And we all know that paperwork is king,’ Helena interjected, a wry smile on her lips.
‘Indeed. The world has changed now, and so has the company. I want to be...worthy of that. I want to use this opportunity to bring Morrison-Ashton fully into the twenty-first century, build it up to even greater heights. I want to make our fathers proud. I want to make my wife proud.’
She glanced away at that, but her fingers tightened around his just for a moment. Almost, Flynn thought. He almost had her, and all he’d had to do was tell the truth.
‘You’ve got it all planned out,’ she murmured.
‘I like to know where I’m going,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I find it helps make up for never knowing where I came from.’
Her eyes widened, and her gaze fixed on his face. ‘Do you really feel that?’
‘Sometimes.’ Flynn frowned a little. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I just...’ She took a breath, and he could almost see her trying to calm herself. But why? His adoption had never been a secret and, living as closely as their families had, none of this could really be considered a surprise. ‘I always knew you were adopted, and I realised before I was very old that it made Ezekiel treat you differently. But you were always one of the family to me—to us. Even to Isabella, I think. And Zeke...’
‘I’ve made my peace with Zeke,’ Flynn said, remembering the last conversation he’d had with his brother before he left. Before he took Flynn’s bride with him.
‘Even now?’
‘Especially now.’ He stroked the back of her hand lightly, just enough to remind her that they were connected now. ‘Zeke didn’t take Thea; she chose to go. And yes, that might not have been in my plan. But, as a result, I got to marry a beautiful, bright, wonderful woman. One who always considered me family, which means more than you can know. Trust me, I’m happy with how things turned out.’
‘Oh!’ It was more a surprised squeak than a word, and Flynn would have laughed at the shock on her face if it wouldn’t have ruined the mood.
He released her hand and leant back as the waiter appeared with their starters. He had a feeling the conversation wasn’t done yet, but he’d said what he needed to. She knew where he stood now. All he needed was for her to join him.
Easy.
He took a bite of his crostini di fegato while she toyed with her risotto, her fork twirling through the rice grains without ever making it near her mouth. She’d talk when she was ready, he decided, and set about enjoying his starter instead.
He was halfway through when she said, ‘The other night...’ then stopped and winced.
Of course. Their wedding night. Of course she’d want to talk about that in a crowded restaurant where he couldn’t do anything to persuade her that his reluctance to take her to bed had nothing to do with lack of interest.
‘It had been a long day for both of us,’ he said as neutrally as he could.
She waved a hand at him across the table, dismissing his words as unnecessary or irrelevant, he wasn’t completely sure which. ‘That night, I thought for a moment that you might have been in love with my sister.’
Flynn blinked at her in confusion. ‘Why on earth would you think that?’
The burst of laughter Helena didn’t quite manage to contain by slapping her hand to her mouth drew the attention of every other diner in the room. Flynn steadfastly refused to look at or acknowledge them, keeping his gaze on Helena as she simmered down to a giggle.
‘You realise how ridiculous that is, right? You were supposed to marry her four days ago, and you can’t imagine how I might have got the impression that you were in love with her?’
Put like that, he supposed she had a point. ‘Except you knew that the marriage was a business arrangement.’
‘For her, yes. But I’d never spoken to you about how you felt. Still haven’t, actually.’ She paused in a way that suggested he was supposed to remedy that. Immediately. Except at that point the waiter returned to clear their starters, followed by another server carrying their main courses.
Flynn sighed and picked up his wine glass, taking the opportunity to consider his answer. Once they were alone again, he said, ‘Marrying Thea was the plan because it gave us both what we wanted—or at least what I thought she wanted. Business and personal security, a future together and the possibility of children. Plus a good boost for the company PR. She got to escape her ridiculous failures with men, and I got to earn a real place at the family table. It worked.’
‘So, nothing about love at all?’ Helena pressed her fork into her porcetta, cut a sliver and popped it into her mouth. ‘Mmm, this is delicious.’
‘I’ll admit I hoped that one day we might come to love one another. But no, I wasn’t in love with her.’ And it was painfully obvious to all and sundry that she hadn’t been in love with him either. That was the only part that still smarted, just a little. Flynn turned his attention to his main course, mostly to pretend that it didn’t.
‘But you’d spoken about...children. And you admitted that you would have slept with her already, if she’d gone through with the marriage.’ Her neutral tone gave nothing away, no hint of the right answer for him to give. Even if she hadn’t really asked a question.
‘For me, and for Thea, I think, we wanted to make this a real lasting marriage. Even if it didn’t start out from a place of true love or anything. She’s an attractive woman,’ he added, watching Helena’s face closely as he spoke for any sign of a negative reaction. Sometimes when women said they wanted honesty, in his experience, they wanted anything but. ‘And we had an iron-clad fidelity clause. If either of us ever wanted to have sex again, it had to be with each other.’
Helena sat back and studied him, sipping from her own wine glass. ‘I like our story better,’ she said after a moment.
‘Our story?’
‘Yes. It’s more...dramatic. Romantic. Spontaneous.’
‘Of course.’ Flynn’s shoulder muscles relaxed a little now she hadn’t thrown wine in his face for talking about sleeping with her sister. ‘And you like romance and spontaneity.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ She gave a small shrug. ‘But you two would have gone into that marriage with a heavy weight of expectations—written and signed in blood.’
‘I like to think of it as more of a plan,’ Flynn said mildly.
‘You mean a schedule.’ Helena shook her head. ‘But life doesn’t work like that. What if you slept together and it was dreadful?’
Flynn really didn’t want to talk about this, but apparently he didn’t have much of a choice. ‘Then we’d have...I don’t know. Practised, or something.’ Could this be more awkward?
‘What if she couldn’t have children?’
