Page 32 of Contractually Wed

“What?” Jia said, blinking hard. “She was crying and my father was yelling in the background—”

“He pushed her. They had to bring her to the hospital—”

“Is she hurt?”

“No, she insisted on going because apparently she’s pregnant and wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“She told you all this?”

“Last night, between sobs,” he said, dryly.

“She’s...pregnant?”

“Yes. Which is why she shamelessly pushed you toward me. What little courage she might have, she used it up telling me she’d have just married me anywayifyou hadn’t interfered, and it felt awful that she’d let you take her place and, oh, please would I help her because your father was going to throw her out, and she found out from you that I wasn’t the horrible monster she thought I was.”

Jia rubbed her hands over her face, a ghastly calm taking place of the frenzy from before. “Vik...he adores her. He shouldn’t—”

“Why is it okay for him to push you around but not your older sister who’s supposed to look after you?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jia replied and turned away, but not before he missed her flinch. All her fury was spent and he could see her withdrawing into herself, as clearly as if she was setting up brick walls around her.

“No, Jia,” he said, grabbing her around the waist until she looked at him. “You started this,agapi, and I demand that you finish it. You and I both know Vik needs to learn a lesson, before he does something worse than getting drunk and pushing his sisters around. If your father had any kind of sense, he would let him rot in the cell and fear the consequences.”

“Fine. I agree.”

“Then please, kindly answer my question,” he said, unable to keep his temper out of his tone.

“It’s a ridiculous assumption.”

“Jia—”

“How does it matter who looks after whom? You’re the youngest but you take care of all of them, don’t you?”

“My sisters don’t take advantage of me. Mama hates everything I have done for the last decade but she would never sell me out to some stranger who might or might not—”

“My mom asked me to look after them, okay?” Jia burst out, her eyes flashing. “To keep them together. All my life, she begged me to be good and quiet and capable and strong...stronger than any of them. She said it was her fault that my father had become so hardened and soulless and she couldn’t desert him and I shouldn’t either.”

“What weakness?”

Something like pure anguish danced in her eyes. It stole the breath from his lungs.

“She...she had an affair and I was the result. When she found out she was pregnant with me, she confessed everything. My father...loved her enough that he agreed to raise me as his own.”

“So Rina would’ve followed in her footsteps if you hadn’t saved her?”

She glared at him but didn’t argue. Apollo wondered if that was progress. “I didn’t...know until I was thirteen, when Mom fell sick. I finally understood why he was so...strict and unbending, especially with me. I promised her that I would be strong, that I would take on her responsibilities in her absence.”

Suddenly, Apollo had a blueprint to every little thing that had thrown him about her from day one. The emerging picture only served to anger him. “So you’ll forgive them anything? Forgive your father because he raised you as his own, even though, clearly, he expects you to pay for it?”

“He’s never asked me for anything.” She pushed her fingers through her hair, her gaze far off for a moment. “I... I did it willingly. And not everything is black-and-white, Apollo. Would you forgive me if I cheated on you?”

The very idea made him want to howl like a deranged person. “I’m not answering that because I know you won’t.” He had no idea where his faith came from. But it was there, unwavering and real, as solid as the house they were standing in. Stronger than any conviction he’d ever had before.

“The fact is he loved her enough to raise me as his. He gave me a home, an education, a family.”

“But he continues to punish you for it.”

“He’s never said one unkind word to me my entire life.”

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