Page 68 of Falling for You Again

He flinches and tightly folds his arms. “God, I miss him.”

My heart cracks for him and the brother he lost. As much as I want to pull him into my arms and hold him, I refrain since he doesn’t want to be touched. Whatever this is, whatever he needs to express, it has to run its course without my interference.

“My parents blame me. Hell, I blame me. I was the reckless one, always doing stupid shit, getting into trouble. But with Liam gone, they shifted their expectations of him to me. They ordered me to straighten out and get my shit together because one day, the Savant House would be mine. I didn’t want to work there. I wanted to build furniture and travel and raise a family far from anything that had to do with Savant. I was that typical rebellious second child.” He gives me a sad smile. “I didn’t appreciate what I had. But I didn’t argue with them. I didn’t have a right to. I did exactly what I was told. I felt too guilty not to.

“So I applied to college, went to Yale like Liam would have, then went to work at Savant, working wherever they put me, loving and hating it at the same time. I thought about quitting, and a few times, I worked up the courage to do it. But I could never go through with it. The whole reason why I was there is because Liam wasn’t.

“Then I met you. Beautiful you. There’s so much life in you.” He turns to fully face me. His fingertips briefly touch my cheek. “You know exactly who you are and what you want, and you aren’t afraid to go for it. You fucking ran out on your own wedding. I mean, who does that? From the moment I met you, Meli, I’ve admired you for your bravery. I’ve looked up to you for your ambition. You inspired me. You’re so passionate about your work and life, taking the good and the bad instride. Lucky me; some of that rubbed off. I need to live for myself. I need to go after what I want, which isn’t working at the family business for the rest of my life.”

It occurs to me this is why he’s compelled to always please his parents, especially his mom. Why he finally agreed to marry Fallon. He’s been living up to their expectation of being the dutiful son because he believes he’s to blame for Liam’s death.

His first horrible mistake.I recall Kaye’s words from yesterday and feel sick to my stomach on Aaron’s behalf.

“Anyway.” He runs a hand through his hair, agitated. “I’ve known since I was eighteen my parents would force my spouse to sign their prenup and that they’d disown me if she didn’t. I knew what was in that agreement.”

“Fallon would have signed it.”

“She would have.” Aaron’s eyes shimmer and he cradles my face with shaking hands. “Your drive to be independent, to do everything on your own, to control your destiny ... It isn’t a flaw, Meli. It’s one of the most stunning, enchanting things about you. It’s what I love about you.”

My breath shudders. “You gambled I wouldn’t sign it.” And in doing so, he forced his parents to follow through on their threat: to disown him, and in turn, to fire him. Based on my own brief interactions with Kaye, I know she would have made his life miserable had he quit on his own.

But a knot forms in my stomach, tightening as an unsettling thought comes to mind.

“Is this what you wanted to get from marrying me, for your parents to disown you?” I recall what he said to me when we’d agreed to our marriage of convenience.Don’t forget. We each want something out of this.“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He hesitates and I step back, his arms falling to his sides. I’m not sure I want to hear what he’s about to say.

“You have a generous heart, Meli, but sometimes even the most generous shouldn’t always be so.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I worried you’d sign it if you knew what would happen to me if you refused. I worried that you’d sign it even after I said that I didn’t care if they disowned me because you wouldn’t want to feel responsible for them doing just that. Your greatest desire is to feel close to your family. The last thing you’d want is to see mine push me away.”

“I can’t say in good conscience I would have ever signed that agreement, but I wish you would have trusted me to make the right choice, just like you’d asked me to trust you that our marriage would convince the Savant House to reconsider their acquisition offer.”

“You’re right. I should have. But I’m man enough to admit I was scared. I didn’t want to talk you into something you otherwise wouldn’t do.”

I peer up at him in a new light. It makes sense Aaron has an innate fear of talking people into doing things they wouldn’t normally agree to. It most likely stems from when he’d pressured his brother into free-climbing. It would explain why he was so adamant about knowing he hadn’t manipulated me into marrying him. That the decision had been 100 percent mine. Now that I know about Liam, I see why Aaron behaves as he does.

Still, I feel uneasy about all of this.

I turn from him and look into the woods. “I guess we both got what we wanted from our marriage.”

I feel Aaron’s panic before I hear it. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t know.” On the one hand I’m reeling from what he told me about his brother and the ensuing fallout that’s slowly torn his family apart. That couldn’t have been easy for him to admit, let alone share. But on the other hand, I can’t help thinking that through his fear of not manipulating me into marriage, he’d done exactly that.

Chapter 21

No Plan B

We don’t talk much on the ride home, which is weird for us. We’re always talking. Aaron keeps his attention on the road, but I feel him look over at me from time to time. I stare out my window at the city skyline sparkling against the backdrop of night, thinking about us.

I don’t want to say Aaron used me. We used each other. That’s why we entered into a marriage of convenience. But I was transparent about my reasons for getting married. From the beginning, he’s known owning Artisant Designs has been my end goal. Aaron, though, was more translucent than transparent about his goal, keeping certain things to himself, and I can’t help comparing how much that reminds me of Uncle Bear and my parents. Nobody tells me anything because I’m not important enough to them.

I know I tend to act rashly. I’ve done so on more than one occasion. And yes, maybe they worried I’d overreact and do something to spoil their plans. But by keeping everything from me, they, in essence, stole my agency.

“Are you okay?” Aaron asks when he parks in front of the town house and we get out of the car.

---