“That’s why you proposed?” Boy, he really knew how to kick someone when they were down.
“You knew that,” he said with impatience. Then, after a beat, he added, “Didn’t you?”
“Well, I thought you felt something for me.” She swallowed, trying to clear the croak from her voice. “We were sleeping togeth—Oh, my God.” She closed her eyes, hugging the baby and wishing she had the strength to rise and storm off. “You didn’t even want to marry me. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? I’m such an idiot. I mean, I kind of got that message after you didn’t come back, but I thought I had done something to change your mind. Or that you realized you could have had anyone and decided I was too plebian and boring. When you proposed, we had already slept together. I thought that meant you cared about me, not just getting me into bed.”
“You got me into bed. You showed up with wine. I wasn’t your first lover. I didn’t seduce you.” He shot each word at her, blunt and fast, then paused, giving her space to correct him.
She couldn’t. He was right, much to her chagrin.
“That doesn’t explain why you bothered to propose,” she choked.
“When big brother twisted my arm... Hell, I don’t know why I gave in. I liked Zach.” He shrugged. “We were going into business together. Marrying his sister seemed like a good way to secure my side of things. Honestly? Call me delusional, but I didn’t think you would accept. I thought we were having a summer fling. You said you were going back to school.”
“You bluffed and I called it? That’s what you’re saying?” she asked with disbelief.
“Pretty much. And there were things with my parents... My father wanted me to come and work for him. I thought a wife and my own business in Canada would get him off my back.”
“So I was a bulletproof vest? Did your father know he was sick? And that things were falling apart? Is that why he wanted you there?” She frowned. “Did you know he was sick?”
“It was the sort of massive heart attack that was inevitable, given his lifestyle, but no, none of us knew he was on the verge of one. He hadn’t seen a doctor in years. I thought he was being his overbearing self, demanding I come work for him so he could tell me I wasn’t doing it right.” His expression shuttered. “He’d done that twice before. I wasn’t interested in going through it again.”
“You must have had mixed feelings, though, after it happened. Must have wished you’d returned when he asked.” Any child would. “Is that why you stayed once you got there?”
“I wouldn’t have made a different choice if I had realized he was going to die,” Leon said dispassionately. “I had made up my mind I wouldn’t work for him. That I would start doing my own thing. He was the most entitled bastard you’d never want to meet.”
It was such a harsh indictment she could only blink in shock.
She recalled Leon being oddly stoic when he’d taken his mother’s call that his father had died. She insists I come home. I’ll be back soon. It had been eerie, the way he’d taken the news without emotion and acted as though his mother wanting him home was an imposition. Everyone grieved differently, she had told herself, trying not to judge.
That had come later, when he’d ignored her calls and texts.
“I was a different man then.” Leon scrubbed a hand across his face. “Spoiled. As long as my credit cards worked, I didn’t ask where the money came from. When I was forced to take over, I realized why he had micromanaged me in the past. He was hiding the fact his fortune had been built on things like child labor, collusion, and skirting environmental rules.”
“Are you serious?” She absently caught Illi’s hand, keeping her fingers from trying to get into her mouth since her jaw was hanging open in shock.
“Completely,” he said grimly. “That left me with two choices. I could walk away and lose absolutely everything, leave my mother destitute, and forever wonder if the industrial leaders who moved into our place took a more conscientious approach, or I could do things better myself. They weren’t my crimes, but I had benefited from them. I had to clean it up. With great power comes great responsibility, but in order to take responsibility, I had to maintain the power. Understand? So I stayed and made the hard choices that kept us afloat—including backing out of my deal with your brother.”
In a twisted way, she saw the logic, and something else. “You couldn’t tell me that because you thought I’d go public with it? Spill the beans on your father’s misdeeds?”
“We barely knew each other. Frankly, I expected you to come after me for a divorce settlement. The longer time went on and you didn’t, the more I thought it was best to let sleeping dogs—”
She narrowed her eyes. He abandoned that metaphor.
“I figured you knew I was broke and chose to distance yourself. Given the crimes my father had committed, walking away from a wife who didn’t want me and an investment opportunity I couldn’t afford was nothing by comparison.”
“It wasn’t ‘nothing’ to us,” she said in a raw voice.
“I didn’t tell Zach to move as fast as he did,” he defended sharply. “He got in way over his head without ensuring his financing was in place. I’ve had handshake deals fall into the toilet myself. That’s business, Tanja.”
“Yes, I can see how difficult things have been for you. It’s not personal that you saved your own butt, not ours. Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, climb off your high horse. If I was so terrible, why didn’t you divorce me? Why did you even marry me? Love?” he taunted.
“At least that’s what I thought it was!” A hot sting of embarrassment rushed across every inch of her skin. “I was young and romantic enough to think passion was a sign of something more enduring. It didn’t hurt that my brother thought you were wonderful. Everyone wants their spouse to be friends with their sibling. Your investment would have given my dad a very comfortable retirement. My marrying you wrapped everything into a tidy bow of happily-ever-after, so of course I thought you were making all my dreams come true.”
He snorted.
“I know that was immature and unrealistic! It still hurts that you didn’t even feel that much toward me. Why did you bother coming to Istuval? You could have left me there to rot, never to darken your doorway again.”
His expression hardened to granite. He was silent so long she feared she had overstepped in some way. Then he blinked and said, “I thought it would put me in the best position for negotiating our divorce.”
That launched a fresh wave of outrage. “I don’t want your stupid money, Leon. I just want to be free of you.”