Page 54 of The Sin

Roman caught my eye.

I sent him a reassuring look.

“For goodness sake, Georga, we haven’t seen you in ages,” Brenda started off the dinner conversation to my left. “Where have you been hiding?”

Since I had no idea how much she knew about my ‘insubordinate behavior’, I had no idea how to respond.

“That would be my fault,” Roman drawled. “I’ve been keeping my wife entertained, haven’t I, darling?”

Darling?Even so, heat warmed my cheeks. He was looking at me with a wicked glint in his eyes and the drawleddarlingtripped off his tongue like roasted honey. I wasn’t usually keen on endearments, but I could totally get on board with this one. From his lips only.

Daniel coughed. “Well, it’s good to see you, both of you,” he added with a boyish grin at Roman. “You missed a great catch last night.”

Roman cocked a brow at him. “Yours?”

“Who else?” Daniel spread his arms. “No exaggeration.”

I was confused, until Julian said with a chuckle, “There’s always some exaggeration. But every real fisherman knows to take at least ten inches off the tale.”

Daniel shook his head in earnest, insisting, “That trout was forty pounds, I swear.”

Brenda rolled her eyes and giggled, and two young men with spines almost as stiff as McKinnon’s walked in with the first course. Crispy asparagus spears dipped in a creamy chive sauce, served with spinach and feta palmiers.

The lighthearted chatter went on around me as the meal progressed. Roman kept up my share of the conversation, and I contributed only when it would be rude not to.

I was giving Julian exactly what he wanted, a meek and mild bride who’d finally been tamed into something manageable.

But that was just coincidental.

I didn’t have it in me to sit at this table and smile and laugh and joke with a man who’d taken so much from me. From Jessie. From Brenda. From every woman in Capra.

The only person at the table less animated than me was Miriam. She was here with us, but she certainly wasn’t present. She cut off a dainty corner of her roast beef and put it in her mouth, her gaze drifting between her plate and the centerpiece, as if that were the most interesting thing in the room. Not her guests. Not her husband. Not even her son. I’d never witnessed her showing Daniel an ounce of warmth.

Daniel and Julian were back to teasing each other about last night’s fishing trip. On the surface, they had a great father-son relationship. But it went deeper than that, far below the surface.

Daniel knew his mother had gone through rehab. He’d said as much, when he’d explained why he hadn’t offered for me, although I hadn’t realized it at the time. He’d said my smile was trouble. He’d told me I was a wildflower in a garden of potted plants. He saw me, and he knew I was too different.

A councilman’s wife has to be perfect in the eyes of Capra.He could have been talking in general, but then he’d said,Roman will protect you when it really matters.

He must have been thinking of his mother, and how his father hadn’t been able to save her from rehab. I was pretty damn sure, however, that he did not know that Julian hadputher there.

My gaze went to Julian. There was a warm light dancing in his eyes as he joked about with Daniel. Everything in this life could be faked, but Julian wasn’t a complete and utter cold-blooded sociopath.

He probably loved Miriam in his own way.

He loved his son.

Why had he had no choice but to…No! He was a councilman. He was one of the few men in Capra who always had a choice, and maybe it hadn’t been an easy choice, maybe he’d struggled with it more than I’d ever know or care, but he’d made it.

He’d sent Daniel’s mother away, and she’d returned to them as this empty shell, as if all vitality in her soul had been scooped out.

Julian glanced away from Daniel and caught me staring. I should have dropped my gaze, but I didn’t.

I stared right into his smiling eyes.What did Miriam do that was so unforgivable?It hit me. I’d been married to Roman, a junior warden, for a couple of months and look at all that I’d discovered.

Had Miriam gone looking?

Had she found some of his deep, dark secrets?

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