A wrecking ball hit him in the middle of his chest. “He hit you?”
Her silence and embarrassed bite of her lip spoke volumes.
His torso felt as if it split open and his teeth clenched so hard he thought they’d crack. His scalp prickled and his blood turned to battery acid.
“I didn’t ask again,” she said in her quick, sweep-it-under-the-rug way. “I didn’t let the boys say his name. I let it go. I learned to let a lot of things go.”
Like equal rights. Like bad decisions with the hotel chain that were only now being repaired after her father was dead. Like the fact that her brothers were still boys because they’d been raised by a child: her.
Gideon had seen the dysfunction, the alcoholic mother and the overbearing father, the youngest son who earned his father’s criticism, and the older children who hadn’t, but received plenty of it anyway. Adara had always managed the volatile dynamics with equanimity, so Gideon hadn’t tried to stir up change. If he had suspected physical abuse was the underbelly of it all...
His fist clenched. “You should have told me,” he said.
Another slicing glance repeated the obvious. We don’t talk.
His guts turned to water. No, they didn’t and because of that he’d let her down. If there was one thing his wife had never asked of Gideon, but that he’d regarded as his sacred duty, it was his responsibility to protect her. Adara was average height and kept herself toned and in good shape, but she was undeniably female. Her bones were smaller, her muscles not as thick as a man’s. She was preordained by nature to be vulnerable to a male’s greater strength. Given what had happened to his own mother, he’d lay down his life for any woman, especially one who depended on him.
“At any time since I’ve known you,” he forced himself to ask, “did he—”
“No,” she answered bluntly, but her tone was tired. “I learned, Gideon.”
It wasn’t any sort of comfort.
How had he not seen this? He’d always assumed she was reserved because she had been raised by strict parents. She was ambitious and focused on material gain because most immigrant families to America were. He was.
And compliant? Well, it was just her nature.
But no, it was because she had been abused.
He couldn’t help staring at her, reeling in disbelief. Not disbelieving she had been mistreated, but that he hadn’t known. What else did he not know about her? he wondered uneasily.
Adara forced herself to eat as though nothing was wrong, even though Gideon’s X-ray stare made her so nervous she felt as if her bones were developing radiation blisters. Why had she told him? And why did it upset her that he knew what she’d taken such pains to hide from the entire world? She had nothing to be ashamed of. Her father’s abuse wasn’t her fault.
Sharing her past made her squirm all the same. It was such a dark secret. So close to the heart. Shameful because she had never taken action against her father, trying instead to do everything in her power to keep what remained of her family intact. And she’d been so young.
Her eyebrows were trying to pull into a worried frown. She habitually noted the tension and concentrated on relaxing her facial muscles, hiding her turmoil. Taking a subtle breath, she begged the constriction in her throat to ease.
“He went by his father’s name,” she told Gideon, taking up the subject of her brother as the less volatile one and using it to distract his intense focus from her. “I found his blogs at one point, but since he had never tried to contact us I didn’t know if he’d want to hear from me. I couldn’t reach out anyway,” she dismissed with a shrug. “Not while my father was alive.” She had feared, quite genuinely, that he would kill her. “But as soon as Papa died, I started thinking about coming here.”
“But never told me.”
She flinched, always sensitive to censure.
Her reaction earned a short sigh.
She wasn’t going to state the obvious again though, and it wasn’t as if she was laying blame. The fact they didn’t talk was as much her fault as his, she knew that. Talking about personal things was difficult for her. She’d grown up in silence, never acknowledging the unpleasant, always avoiding points of conflict so they didn’t escalate into physical altercations. Out of self-defense she had turned into a thinker who never revealed what she wanted until she had pondered the best approach and was sure she could get it without raising waves.
“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here, not even my brothers. I didn’t want anyone talking me out of it.” It was a thin line in the sand. She wouldn’t be persuaded to leave until she’d seen her brother. She needed Gideon to recognize that.
He didn’t argue and they finished their meals with a thick cloud of tension between them. The bouzouki music from the speakers sounded overly loud as sultry heat layered the hot air into claustrophobic blankets around them.
The minute the server removed their plates, Adara stood and gathered her things, grasping at a chance to draw a full breath. “Thank you for lunch. Goodbye, Gideon.”
His hand snaked out to fasten around her wrist.
Her heart gave a thump, his touch always making her pulse leap. She glared at the strong, sun-browned fingers. It wasn’t a hard grip. It was warm and familiar and she hated herself for liking it. That gave her the strength to say what she had to.
“Will you contact Halbert or shall I?” She ignored the spear of anguish that pierced her as she mentioned their lawyer’s name.