Page 24 of Between Commitment and Betrayal
10
EVERLY
“Welcome home,”he said, and, like an ominous sign, lightning cracked in the sky and it started to rain. The clouds couldn’t hold the water a second longer, just like I couldn’t hold in the emotion and tension from the day.
His house was even bigger than Carl and Melinda’s, albeit in the same gated community. The appeal of that had been made very clear when the security guard closed the iron gates on the paparazzi that had followed us from the will reading.
I’d never known fame that intense. Sure, I’d had cameras on me once before, but they were for a news article, not glossy magazines and paparazzi. The flashes almost swallowed me up along with the crowd in that moment.
Declan didn’t exactly care about me, he’d demonstrated that more than once over the past few months, but he must have had a heart somewhere in that broad chest because his hand found the small of my back as he pulled me close and rushed me to his Bugatti Veyron.
I knew the car because I’d been so shocked at seeing it the first time. I’d seen a Lamborghini and other expensive cars, but nothing like that. It was always parked in the owner’s spot, and I had a weak moment of looking one day.
Its price was astronomical yet surprised me less now that I was staring at his house.
He drove us down a winding street where I saw the brick pillars with yet another bigger, black gate that stood taller than the last one we passed. Declan pressed a button on the steering wheel and the two fences swung slowly outward as we approached.
Gray brick weaved up and then fanned out toward a massive garage of dark wooden doors and an over-the-top staircase to the entrance.
I stared at the trees rustling in the wind, so high over our heads. Those trees told me that this land had been here far longer than any of us. Yet, his home had sleek lines, straight angles, and had a clean look like his fitness center.
As the water droplets pelted the windshield, I muttered, “Looks like a modern-day castle.”
He glanced over at me. “It’s actuallyyourcastle now, if you want to call it that, but it’s really just a house.”
“Declan, just because we signed a contract for a year doesn’t mean it’s my house in any—”
He cut me off by shaking his head. “What’s mine will be yours, Everly. You can’t tiptoe around me 24-7. Carl wouldn’t have wanted that, and I don’t either.”
Hearing his name even now when Declan and I hadn’t discussed him really since that night at the sauna made the guilt bubble up. “I probably should have reached out to him more.”
“You take the blame a lot for a woman who was only a child when your parents divorced.”
I dragged one finger down the window, following a line of a water drop on the other side of the glass. “I remember the anger I had that my father wouldn’t come home. I remember consciously making a choice in my teenage years to not visit after so many years of him not visiting a single time and forbidding me to come for the holidays. I forced an estrangement too. That’s on me. I was being selfish and emotional.”
He sighed. “Carl was selfish and emotional—he was the adult. You can’t take full responsibility. He could have pushed, insisted like a father should have.”
I nodded and, as I glanced at Declan, saw the charm everyone else did right then. He was meeting me on my level, smiling at me softly so as not to push me while in a vulnerable moment. Declan Hardy was dangerous this way, sitting in the quiet pitter-patter of the rain in his expensive sports car.
The world faded away as we sat in silence, as my eyes skirted over his lips, his vivid eyes that suddenly held some sort of emotion, and that massive frame I always knew would be so easy to curl into.
“I think it’s best we don’t discuss this with others.” I tried to veer myself in the right direction. We would have to make up rules, and I was happy to start right then. The sooner we laid out everything, the easier it would be. People were going to want answers. Why was I staying with him? Where was I sleeping? What was in the will?
“Marriage is public record. It’s going to come out. But discussing the stipulations within the trust and the will isn’t necessary. If asked, we can call it what it is.”
“What’s that?”
Cracking his knuckles, he said, “A marriage of convenience for the sake of the HEAT empire.”
“Okay. So, don’t talk with the media and keep things vague if asked.” I had to make it clear, though. My heart wouldn’t allow for anything else. For me, this wasn’t about their empire. “And, just so you know, this is for my mother’s studio… where my whole past life took place.” He needed to understand.
“There’s also compensation involved for you, Everly—”
“I would never have done this for the money.”
He searched my eyes like he wasn’t sure. “So, this is for a past life?”
I cleared my throat, trying to strip away my fear of him finding out about my past and dragging it here. Florida was supposed to be my new start. I sat up straighter. “Maybe that’s another rule. We have separate lives. Let’s leave them that way. My past is my past. Yours is yours. What you do with the present and future, totally fine also. It’s not my business unless we need to discuss it for the sake of the media.”
