A barbed clamp snapped hard around her heart. She wasn’t brave enough to give up that particular organ and had never fooled herself into dreaming a man could love her back, so no, she wouldn’t ask him for love. She settled on part of the truth.
“I want to quit feeling so useless,” she confessed, suffering the sensation of being stripped naked by the admission. “I’m predisposed to insecurity because of my upbringing, I know that. I’m not worthless, but I feel that way in this marriage. Now I can’t even bring children into it. I can’t live with this feeling of inadequacy, Gideon.”
He stared hard at her for a long moment before letting out a snort of soul-crushing amusement.
Adara couldn’t help her sharp exhale as she absorbed that strike. She tried to rise.
Gideon clamped his hand on her arm. “No. Listen. God, Adara...” He shook his head in bemusement, brow furrowed with frustration. “When you asked me to marry you—”
“Oh, don’t!” she gasped, feeling her face flood with abashed color.
He tightened his grip on her wrist, keeping her at the table. “Why does that embarrass you? It’s the truth. You came to me with the offer.”
“I know. Which only reminds me how pathetically desperate I must have seemed. You didn’t want me and wouldn’t have chosen me if I hadn’t more or less bribed you.”
“Desperate?” he repeated with disbelief. “I was the desperate one, coming hat in hand to your father with a proposition I knew he’d laugh out of the room. All I had going for me was nerve.”
“Someone else would have taken up the chance to invest with you, Gideon. It was a sound opportunity, which Papa saw after he got over being stubborn and shortsighted.”
“After you worked on him.”
She shook that off in a dismissive shrug, instantly self-conscious of the way she’d stood up for a man she’d barely known simply because she’d been intrigued by him. It had been quite a balancing act, truth be told.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t have anything to do with it.” He sat forward. “Because this is what I’m trying to tell you. You came to me with things I didn’t have. Your father’s partnership. Entrée into the tightest and most influential Greek cartels in New York and Athens. I needed that, I wanted it, and I had no real belief I could actually get it.”
“Well, I didn’t have much else to offer, did I?” she pointed out in a remembered sense of inadequacy.
“Your virginity springs to mind, but we’ll revisit that another time,” he rasped, making her lock her gaze with his in shocked incredulity.
Suddenly, very involuntarily, she flashed back to her wedding night and the feel of his fingers touching her intimately, his mouth roaming from her lips to her neck to her breast and back as he teased her into wanting an even thicker penetration. She hadn’t understood how his incredibly hard thrust could hurt and feel so good at the same time. Instead of being intimidated by his strength and weight, she’d basked in the sense of belonging as his solid presence moved above her, on her, and within her so smoothly, bringing such a fine tension into every cell of her being. His hard arms had surrounded and braced her, yet shielded her from all harm, making her feel safer than she’d ever felt in her life, so that when she’d shattered, she’d known he’d catch her.
Her body clenched in remembered ecstasy even as she was distantly aware of his hold on her gentling. He caressed her bare forearm and his voice lowered to the smoky tone he’d used when he’d told her how lovely she’d felt to him then. So hot and sweet. So good.
“Try to understand what it meant for me to form a connection to you.”
Her scattered faculties couldn’t tell if he was talking about her deflowering or the marriage in general. She shivered with latent arousal, pulling herself away from his touch to ground herself in the now.
“People knew I came from nothing,” he said. “You want to know why I only speak Greek when I absolutely have to? Because my accent gives me away as the bottom class sailor that I am.”
“It does not,” she protested distractedly.
He reached to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear, his touch lingering to trace lightly beneath her jaw. “If you want me to talk, you’re going to have to listen. People respect you, Adara. Not because your father owned the company, not because of your wealth, but because of the way you conduct yourself. Everyone knew your father’s faults and could see that you were above his habits of lashing out and making hasty decisions. They knew you were intelligent and fair and had influence with him.”
“Now I know you’re lying.” She drew back, out of his reach.
“He didn’t sway easily, that’s true.” He dropped his hands to his thighs. “But if anyone could change his mind, it was you. Everyone knew that, from the chambermaids to the suits in the boardroom. And people also knew that you were being very choosy about finding a husband. Very choosy.”
He sat back, his demeanor solidifying into the man who headed so many boardroom tables, sharp and firm. Not someone you argued with.
“I didn’t appreciate what that choosiness meant until I was by your side and suddenly I was being looked at like I had superpowers because you’d picked me. Maybe it sounds weak to say my ego needed that, but it did. I went from being an upstart no one trusted to a legitimate businessman. I had had some success before I met you, but once I married you, I had self-worth because you gave it to me.”
“But—” Her heart moved into her throat. She wanted to believe him, her inner being urgently needed to believe him, but it was so far from the way she perceived herself. “You’re exaggerating.”
“No, I’m telling you why I’m fighting to keep you.”
“But people respect you. That won’t go away if we divorce.”
“Now they respect me. And perhaps that wouldn’t go away overnight, although I can guarantee I’d be painted the villain if we split. People would pin the blame on me because you’re nice and I’m not, but I’m not saying I want to stay married so I can continue using this knighthood you’ve unconsciously bestowed on me. It comes down to loyalty and gratitude and my own self-respect. I like being your husband. I want to keep the position.”