Page 125 of The Devil's Deceit

“Truly?”

“Yes. I may have Mahoney giving him a bit of a pasting for breaking my bloody nose, but he’ll live.”

I don’t condone violence, but Daniel started it. Maybe a black eye and a split lip is the least he deserves.

Reaching up, I cup Christian’s face and stare deeply into his eyes. I want him to see my sorrow and know it’s coming from a place of deep regret. “I am sorry, Christian. For everything. I can see now what I did was the wrong way to go about things. I had my brother fake an identity, I lied to you from the moment we met, and I put your life in danger. All this could have been avoided if I’d approached you and asked for the truth.”

His arms tighten around me. “I’m not sure I’d have told you then, Grace. I wasn’t ready to put my own flaws out into the open. I didn’t act selflessly. I did what I did as much for me as I did it for you and yourbrother.”

“You were going to tell me all this the night he took you, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know who I was then?”

“No. Your uncle showed me a photo of you with your parents and your brother. I couldn’t work out at first why it looked like you but different.” He flicks the end of my nose. “I’m ashamed that my actions led you to put yourself through surgery, to change your natural appearance.”

“I never liked the old nose anyway.” I shrug. “Looking back now, it’s incredible to me the power that grief has. Before my parents passed away, I could never have envisaged the lengths I would go to for revenge.”

“It’s a potent emotion. Your parents only died recently. My mum and Annabel were taken from us more than twenty years ago, and we’re still grieving. When I look at Xan, especially with the recent discoveries we’ve made, it’s as though he hasn’t moved on at all from losing his twin, and these latest revelations have made matters so much worse.”

“You’re being far nicer to me than I deserve.” I sigh. “I still can’t believe they were in so much debt, and we never saw anything wrong.”

“We’re all capable of subterfuge.” He arches an eyebrow, his eyes twinkling. “Right?”

“I guess so. None of us know what we’re capable of until our boundaries or beliefs are challenged. Until we face hardship and loss. I’ll try not to think badly of them, but it’s going to take some processing. If it hadn’t been for some benevolent stranger coming to our rescue, I don’t know what we’d have done.”

“What do you mean?”

“After the funeral, we found out someonepaid off the mortgage on the house. If they hadn’t, we’d never have afforded the repayments on our own.”

“Ah.” Christian drops his gaze, his teeth scoring his lip. “That was, uh, me. It’s so long ago, I’d forgotten. I also paid off all their debts, so the criminal gang your father owed money to wouldn’t come looking for you and your brother.”

My eyes fly open. “You… what?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Christian.” I rest my hand on his thigh. “I can’t believe you did that. And look how I repaid you. God, I’m so ashamed.”

“Don’t be. Enough with the recriminations. I love you, Grace, so very much. I’m not sure at what point it happened, but all I know is that you make my life complete. There’s only one remaining question, or rather, two, that I need an answer to if I’m to work out where we go from here.”

I blink up at him, reeling from his admission of love. He loves me.He loves me.“What’s that?”

“Do you love me, and do you still want to be my wife?”

My eyes swim with tears, and I can’t swallow all of a sudden. I gaze into the bottomless brown eyes of a man I thought capable of terrible atrocities and think about how lucky I am. How things could have gone so terribly awry, and I would only have had myself to blame.

“Yes,” I whisper, letting the tears fall. “Yes, yes, yes.”

His beaming smile sends my heart racing. “Right answer.”

Chapter Forty

GRACE

“Welcome to Oakleigh.” Christian’s open stance and friendly smile greets my brother at the front door. “Come on in. Nice to see you again, Juliet.”

Arron and Juliet step inside the house. Arron’s mouth gapes as he gazes around the opulent entranceway.