Page 24 of His Forgotten Wife

“It’s nothing like you’re imagining, Ares,” she said, clasping his cheeks. “The big macho man that you are, you’re still their target. Not me.”

He frowned. It was the last thing he’d expected her to say. “What do you mean?”

She shrugged.

“Tell me, Dahlia. Or we will be here all evening. My hip is on fire if that makes the decision for you.”

“I don’t want you to be affected by their nasty words.”

A strange tightness coiled in his chest. But the feeling wasn’t quite what he would call discomfort exactly.

He chuckled, even though the last thing he felt like was laughing.

“They took everything they possibly could from me when I was a vulnerable boy.” He didn’t bother to keep his voice quiet.

He wanted his father to hear it, understand it.

He wanted regret—if he could muster up any at this stage—to haunt his father as his brothers’ taunts and bullying had haunted him as a boy.

“There is nothing more they could do to me now. Except hurt you.”

“They didn’t hurt me,” Dahlia said, eyes shining.

“But, Ares,” the very universe itself seemed to dwell in how she said his name, “how many times have you or Christina or my grandpa told me that I shouldn’t let my aunt or her cruel words get to me?

That there’s no rhyme or reason to how she speaks to me, despite everything I have done all these years to please her? To get one measly word of approval?”

He clasped her cheek and let his thumb rub up and down her cheekbone. “What are you saying, agapi ?”

“That their words can still have the power to hurt you and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I have, hopefully, left shame behind, Dahlia. Also, are you worried that they might beat me up in a physical confrontation? I’m not a vulnerable runt anymore.”

Her palms shifted over his shoulders, squeezing, and then landed on his chest. “No, you’re not. I just…”

“What did they say to you, Dahlia? I need to understand if anything I have said to them about backing out has sunk in. Unless you want to spend the next few months here, stuck with me. Mama will surely have us married by Christmas, then.”

“Now who’s using scare tactics?”

“Is it such a scary prospect, then? To live in the lap of luxury as my wife?”

“Is this some kind of damned test?” she said, panic filling her eyes.

“That was the original agreement between us, right? That we would fake an engagement to scare my brothers off. They’d know that, once you are my wife, I could transfer all my property and stock to you if it came to a real, dirty court battle between me and them?

So you must have at least imagined what being my wife for real would entail? ”

She jerked, as if he had scalded her. Her lips trembled. “You really can’t think all this wealth and luxury would sway me?”

“No, of course. You want fairy tales and true love. Even though we both know it probably doesn’t exist,” he said drily. “Come, Dahlia. You’re wet and shivering. Out with it. What did they say to you?”

She sighed, bit her lip, then nodded. “For two meatheads, they seem to be pretty shrewd when it comes to us. They wanted to know what you were paying me to…”

“To what?”

“Sergio asked how much I was charging you to be your whore. Then he did his cringey villain laugh and said there was no way any woman would devote herself to you, except for your millions. I had the pleasure of correcting him to billions.” Her little satisfied smile reminded Ares to breathe.

Neither did he miss the fact that she was trying to manage him.

“Stefano, for all he follows Sergio like a blind dog, apparently has a little more class and substance than I gave him credit for. He asked me if my loyalty was up for sale. Promised me they would double whatever you’re paying me if I walked away from you and the whole wedding.

Even better if I make our breakup into a huge scandal, say you abused your position of power to lure me into an affair and engagement.

But of course, the villain that you are, you ditched me when you didn’t have use for me.

All that will obviously add more dirt and weight to their lawsuit against you. ”

She was right and he, Ares discovered, was disappointingly wrong.

He could still be cut by their words. Especially Sergio, who seemed to understand the deepest wound that Ares had never healed from.

The same wound that pulsed and raged when he couldn’t get his mind to calm.

At those moments, even the pain pulsing through his hip was a welcome distraction.

Through sheer will, he refused to let his mind give a form to that wound.

“I’m hoping you refused their offers, agapi ,” he said, baring his teeth. Much like a wounded animal, he assumed.

“Of course I did,” Dahlia said, bristling.

The little shake of her head sprayed droplets onto his cheek.

Sudden shadows danced in her eyes. “And clearly, they aren’t going to listen to common sense.

The next step I think is to appeal to your father to talk to them.

Put the fear of scandal into him. Seems to me he’s the only one who can control them. ”

“I will decide the next step,” Ares said, suddenly feeling exhausted. “You should get out of the wet suit and take a hot shower.”

“Walk away now, then,” she said, her mouth at his jaw. “I will shower and be in your room in ten minutes.”

He wrapped his fingers around her nape and took her mouth in a rough, possessive kiss that he wanted to deepen.

His erection throbbed for relief and her breath came in warm pants when he released her.

“I don’t like conditions, Dahlia, or caveats.

You know that.” And before she could say anything again, he tightened the towel around her and gave her a push toward the house.

His father reached him on hurried footsteps as he turned to look at his brothers. Sergio and Stefano jumped out of the pool and grabbed towels, leering at him. Challenging him to come at them.

His father barked something at them that Ares couldn’t hear through the deafening roar in his ears, his hand on Ares’s shoulder. The meatheads exited, tame as well-trained dogs. The extent of his father’s control over them made the antics they had taken up against him even more tragic.

Ares jerked away from the older man’s touch, resentment coating his stomach like acid.

“Don’t touch me,” he bit out, angrier than he had ever been in his life.

“How dare you stand there and let them bully her? She’s an innocent woman.

How would you feel if someone did that to Arabella? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“They were simply talking to her, figuring out what her game is. Whatever that woman told you about your brothers—”

“Don’t talk about Dahlia. She’s got more integrity in her pinky finger than the whole lot of you.”

“She’s an outsider, Ares. How can you—”

“Then, by all accounts, I’m an outsider too. The only time you or your sons remember me is when they need money.”

“Ares…”

“Did you know that they’ve stolen thousands of euros from the family company before they came up with the idea for this lawsuit?” he bit out. Another serrated laugh escaped him as the man he’d once idolized stared at him without blinking or even a hint of regret.

And then he saw the truth in those eyes. “Of course you knew. You sent them to me. Didn’t you?”

“You had the means to help them and the company, Ares. That’s what family does. Imagine how it would have broken your grandfather’s heart to know that we might slide into bankruptcy.”

Ares turned and covered the distance between them until he was face-to-face with his father.

“And what do you call turning a blind eye to your older sons beating the shit out of your younger one? Or leaving him locked for an entire night in the tool shed? Or dunking his face into the water sump for long, painful minutes?”

“They were just being boys, Ares. And you needed toughening up. If it wasn’t them, you would have been subjected to it at the boarding school that you begged to be sent to. If you hadn’t left and stayed away, all that would have been settled among the three of you a long while ago.”

“You…” His throat felt like it was full of needles and thorns.

“I see how foolish it was of me to expect that things had changed here. You are the same old fool who ran the business to ground, and they are the same greedy, cheating, thieving bullies who will take whatever they can get their hands on. And Mama…she refuses to see any of this.”

“Don’t bring your mother into this, Ares.”

“And the lawsuit? Am I allowed to bring her into that?”

His father flinched. Resignation filled Ares. It felt the same as the metal that had dragged itself through his hip as he tried to crawl out of the flaming mess of his car. “So you know about that too and haven’t done anything to stop them.”

“You have billions and at the end of the day, they are your brothers, Ares. Settle some money on their children, stock options in your company maybe, and I promise I will get them to drop the lawsuit.”

Ares laughed and rubbed his hand over his hip. “You think they will be happy if I simply settle some stock in their names? You think they won’t come at me and my company again?”

“Not if you give them enough,” his father said without a pause. “Or the entire family gets dragged through the press and the scandal will be horrible. You owe it to this family, Ares. Without your grandfather’s gift—”

“No, I don’t owe anyone anything,” Ares said. “I will not give them or you a penny. Let them do as they will.”

“No, Ares.” Panic seeped into his father’s features and suddenly, he looked old and exhausted.

Whatever pity Ares might have felt leached out of him, leaving a hollow in his gut.

“Think of what might happen if they win? All the assets you might lose. The check your grandfather gave you for your nineteenth birthday…officially, it can be shown that it came from the family money.”

“I don’t care what they or you can prove, Papa. I know how to protect myself and the company from your grubby hands. Tell your sons to do their worst.”

As an eight- or nine-year-old boy, Ares had learned to not show his fear, to let no tears fall when Sergio or Stefano played a particularly nasty trick on him. Forget pity, it had only made them feel as if they’d won over him.

And that early learning came in handy as he mindlessly walked around the grounds in relative darkness. The feeling of loss and pain remained the same though. But he wasn’t alone this time as he had been back then, he reminded himself.

He had Dahlia on his side now and while the thought didn’t take away the disappointment and the pain, it steadied him.