Page 153 of A Convenient Secret

“Lily, don’t do this—”

“Answer my question.”

“It seems like you already know,” he evades.

That’s the worst-case scenario. He doesn’t tell me the whole truth, not even now.

“Why did you marry me?” Jesus. Didn’t he ask me the same a week ago? We both entered this arrangement on a pretense. It’s all been as fake as it gets.

His jaw ticks, his hands curled into fists. He lets out a long breath, and then locks his eyes with mine.

It’s the gaze that kept me prisoner every time he bestowed it on me. This time, it’s laced with pain and desperation.

It’s an odd feeling to see a man larger than life pleading. What is he pleading?

“Why did you marry me, Declan?” Somewhere deep in my heart, I know the reason. I’m just not sure if that makes the lie better or worse.

“Just because,” he croaks.

I close my eyes, trying to draw oxygen into my lungs. “Don’t you dare say that. All my life I have been manipulated, my agency taken away by people who should have loved me. I was told what to do. How to behave. Coerced to fit expectations. I felt safe and free here. And you just…”

“Lily, I was trying to resist you for so long, and then you looked at me with those bewitching eyes of yours, and you offered to marry me. Perhaps I was already in love with you, but Icouldn’t stop.”

“When did you settle?” I don’t even know why I need to know.

“She called the night you signed the prenup. I met her the next day.”

“So before the wedding?”

He nods.

“You say you couldn’t resist me, so you wanted to own me? To control me? You might have reasons that are more noble than Tim’s or my father’s, but at the end of the day, you just caged me because it suited you.”

It could have been wrong actions, good intentions, but why did he hide it? A part of me desperately wants to see his motivations in a different light, but I need to stand up for myself.

“You’re wrong. Don’t you dare compare me to people who only hurt you. I love you.” The vein on his temple swells.

“Really? You do? You watched me through the security cameras. That’s not love. You had so many opportunities to tell me about Kendra settling and you didn’t. You love me on your own terms. Blame me for not trusting you, but do you really trust me?”

“Lily, don’t—”

“No, Declan, you don’t. As you said, I have my father to take care of, and you have your family. We need to be on two different continents.But perhaps we were on two different continents figuratively from the beginning. Maybe you were right to resist me. You should have listened to that gut feeling.”

“What about Zoya and Zach?” His voice is hoarse with desperation.

“Talking about manipulation,” I scoff. “I can’t believe you would drag them into this. I love those children, and it breaks my heart that I’m another person to leave them. That guilt and regret are like nothing I’ve ever experienced. But I’m not going to be the only one to carry that blame. This one we will share.”

I can’t look at him anymore. He’s a broken man, and I want to hug him and make him feel better.

But I have tried to do things better for my mom and then for my father, for the company, for everyone else.

It almost cost me my life in the end. The scars on my body are a daily reminder of that. I deserve more than that.

I turn and walk to the elevator. Snatching my suitcase, I press the call button. A glutton for pain, I chance a look back.

Declan stands in the middle of his vast living room. The summer sun blazes through the windows despite the morning hour, illuminating the beautiful space with brightness. The man in the middle of it looks like a shadow.

He stares at me, but he doesn’t move, frozen in hisown personal nightmare. Or unwilling to fight for us. With me gone, he can over-schedule his life again into a sense of control.