Page 136 of His Forced Bride

"I keep thinking about the employees who betrayed me," she says quietly.

"Marina especially. She'd worked for me for three years. I promoted her, gave her raises, trusted her with my most important projects. And the whole time, she was reporting everything to my mother."

"Money changes people's loyalties."

"But what does that say about me as a leader? As a judge of character? How could I be so blind to what was happening in my own company?"

I refill both our glasses before answering.

"It says you're human. You assumed people were honest because you are honest. You trusted because you're trustworthy. Those aren't weaknesses, even when they're exploited."

"They feel weak right now."

"Everything feels weak when you're processing betrayal this deep. It's temporary."

She studies me over the rim of her glass.

"You sound like you know from experience."

I've spent years building walls around the memories that nearly destroyed me, but sitting here with Inessa, seeing her pain mirror my own from so long ago, those walls feel thinner than usual.

She has thrown a dart to near dead-center on the bullseye, and I'm not prepared for that.

But I won't be the hardened man who bites back anymore.

At least not with her.

"I do know," I admit.

"Your wife?"

I've never really spoken in detail about Yelena to anyone, not even the men who served with me when she died.

But Inessa has shared her pain with me, has trusted me with her vulnerability.

Perhaps it's time to return that trust.

"Her name was Yelena," I begin, and already, the emotion is welling up from a place deep inside me.

Losing someone you love deeply is a wound not quickly healed.

"We were married for eight years."

"What happened to her?"

"It was cancer, and it was aggressive. The doctors didn't find it until it was too late."

I take a drink, feeling the burn of alcohol and memory.

Inessa's expression softens with sympathy.

"I'm sorry."

"The worst part wasn't losing her, though that nearly killed me. The worst part was watching her suffer and being completely powerless to stop it. I could eliminate any human threat, solve any business problem, but I couldn't fight the disease eating her alive."

The memories flood back despite my attempts to contain them.

Yelena growing thinner by the day, her beautiful face gaunt with pain she tried to hide from me.