Husband for the Holidays

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

K ONSTAN TIN ’ S INNER WARRIOR was already agitated. Seeing Eloise enter the lobby of the bank only riled his inner protector more. He wanted to shout and clatter his shield in warning against anyone who might dare to threaten her.

He wanted to kill the man who had.

Despite her worried expression, Eloise was her beautiful self. Her dark hair bounced in waves that framed her face as she moved with purpose toward him, looking confident in her double-breasted coatdress over heeled boots.

She had blossomed in this short time with him, not only reverting to the cheeky young woman he’d known in the past, but growing past her into a sophisticated woman who made his insides twist with admiration and pride.

In this moment, however, all he could see was the thin ill-fitting elf suit she’d been wearing when she’d been scraping by in New York—thanks to Antoine’s machinations.

“The manager put them in a VIP lounge next to the vault,” Konstantin said, nodding curtly at their escort to take them there.

“What happened?” she asked in the elevator.

“I finally spoke to Cyrus. He’s standing by to talk with your mother.” He slid a look to the bank employee, reluctant to elaborate until they had privacy. “It won’t fall to you to tell her.”

“Tell her what?” Her eyes widened in alarm, but the doors opened. They were escorted down a carpeted hall, through an open cage door, and into another anteroom where Antoine and her mother were sipping coffee.

“Darling!” Lilja stood, smiling with surprised pleasure as she stepped forward to hug Eloise. “What are you doing here? You’re not putting my ring directly into your own box. No. It hasn’t seen the sun in years. I want you to wear it.”

“Actually...um... I’m not sure why we’re here?” Eloise looked to Konstantin.

“Neither am I,” Antoine said with cold precision, holding Konstantin’s hate-filled glare with a staggering amount of audacity.

My fault , Konstantin realized with a fresh kick of guilt.

His neglect of these two women had allowed Antoine to believe he could not only get away with what he’d done, but that he still might.

“I apologize for the delay, Madame Roussea.” The bank manager entered. He dismissed the other employee with a nod, then addressed Lilja. “I’ve had an urgent call from our head of security. He’s requesting you thoroughly examine the contents of your safety deposit box while you’re here to ensure the inventory is exactly as you expect it to be.”

“Goodness...” Lilja touched her collar and looked at all of them in turn. “Has there been a robbery?”

“No,” the manager assured with a calming smile. “Our hope is that this is a false alarm. Will you come with me, please?”

Antoine was sending daggers into Konstantin from his narrowed eyes. Eloise looked as apprehensive as her mother. The room was filled with a charged silence.

“Take your time,” Konstantin said to Lilja, finding as calm a tone as he could. “We’ll stay here with Antoine. I need to speak with him, anyway.”

Still faltering with confusion, Lilja followed the bank manager out.

Konstantin pressed the door closed and pinned the older man with his contemptuous glare.

“I suppose you think you’ve gained the upper hand in some way?” Antoine sneered.

“Not me, no. My fiancée is the one with all the power here. Even more when she turns twenty-five and is entitled to become cotrustee of Lilja’s fortune.”

“I didn’t want to believe he was that rotten.” Eloise grappled for the back of the nearest chair.

Konstantin took a quick step to grasp under her elbow, bracing her.

“Until then, you only have the privilege of consultation and the right to demand a full audit if you feel there is just cause,” he explained. “I would say there’s more than just cause, seeing as Antoine has been withholding your living allowance and all the statements and notifications that you ought to be receiving.”

“Is that why you wanted to marry me off to Edoardo?” she asked Antoine with outrage.

“Now you know why he wants to marry you,” Antoine scoffed, pointing at Konstantin.

“Nice try,” Konstantin snorted, but was aware of his hand tightening incrementally on Eloise’s arm, feeling under threat at a very primeval level. “I only found out about this today. Cyrus was surprised you didn’t know about these arrangements,” he continued explaining to Eloise. “He sent a letter to you at your mother’s home when he retired, outlining everything in detail. I’m guessing it was waylaid.” Konstantin curled his lip with disgust as he looked to the reason for the letter going astray.

Antoine was stiff and watchful, mouth twitching into a snarl.

“She wasn’t even coming home,” Antoine said as though it was a sensible defense of his actions. “She was behaving as erratically as a drug addict. I was protecting Lilja’s fortune from someone who was not responsible enough to use that money wisely. Now she’s marrying you ? How well do you think that will play in court?”

Antoine’s derisive tone was a poison-tipped arrow directly into Konstantin’s chest. He shouldn’t have been surprised. This particular secret reared its head occasionally, but it always leaked toxins throughout his whole body, turning it to stone. He only wished he’d taken his chance when he’d had it. Eloise had asked him a few days ago, and he’d turned away from the opportunity to bare all. He hadn’t wanted to ruin the day.

Instead, it would ruin her view of him.

He had the old sense of holding something he had desperately wanted and having it snatched from his grasp. Again.

“I do my homework, too.” Antoine’s mouth wore a smile that was nothing but a denigrating stretch of his lips. It sent a chill of premonition through Eloise’s nerves, curdling her breakfast in her stomach.

“See if your mother—” Konstantin began, but Antoine spoke over him in a tone of evil satisfaction.

“His father murdered his mother. Has he told you that?”

Eloise had started to obey the nudge of Konstantin’s hand.

Antoine’s shocking statement was so cold and unexpected, so gratingly harsh while delivered so conversationally, she felt as though she’d been struck. Her ears buzzed and her skin turned to ice.

She turned back to see Konstantin retreating into the furthest depths of himself, presenting only a granite shell and the radiation of hatred directed toward her stepfather.

The crackle of danger between the men had her flight-or-fight response activating, sending stinging adrenaline through her limbs.

“He died in prison. Violently.” Antoine continued to turn the knife. “It was all covered up by his grandfather, but that’s where he comes from. Do you really want to tie yourself to a man like that? Is that the kind of man you want to sleep next to?”

Konstantin’s hands had been all over her for days, but that wasn’t why Eloise felt so sick right now. No, it was the vileness of Antoine dragging up something so painful and leaving it like entrails in the middle of the floor.

“You think you’re the first to throw that in my face?” Konstantin said with icy disdain. “Or that it gives you any leverage over me? Eloise is the one with the power right now. Cyrus has already sworn a statement. My lawyers are sending notices recommending all of Lilja’s accounts be frozen until the appropriate trustee is identified. If you’ve been squirreling funds to other accounts, it will come to light.”

“And you’ll do what?” Antoine spat in her direction. “You can’t charge her husband with stealing from their common property. She was of sound mind when she put me in charge. You have nothing and you’ll get nothing. All you’ll do is break her heart.”

She would. Eloise knew from experience how awful this would become and was already sick as she absorbed that she would have to do it again. It killed her that she would have to shatter what peace and comfort her mother had managed to find these last years, but she was seeing that it was a horrible illusion, anyway.

“I’m going to tell her that you don’t deserve her because you don’t.”

Antoine puffed up and Konstantin stepped between them.

The door opened behind them and her mother came in, still flustered.

“Everything was fine,” she said with a shaken smile. “I’m not sure what the fuss was about. The manager said he would be in touch soon with more information. What, um... Is everything all right?” She flicked her gaze around the room. The worried lines in her expression etched themselves deeper.

“ Parfait ,” Antoine lied smoothly. “We’ve come to a gentleman’s agreement. I told you lawyers weren’t necessary. Shall we go?”

“Not yet. I have to give Eloise the ring. Look at it.” Her mother smiled mistily as she showed the platinum set diamond on her hand. “I forgot how much I loved it.”

“Keep it on, Mom. I’m taking you home.” Eloise’s voice shook as hard as the rest of her. Everything within her wanted to run from this moment. She had hoped to never go through it again, but... “Antoine isn’t coming. He’s not the man you think he is.”

“They’re not marrying,” Antoine blurted with a cruel bare of his teeth. “Once you hear why, you’ll question all of this.”

Eloise opened her mouth, appalled he would use Konstantin’s past as a weapon.

Before she could protest that learning about Konstantin’s past didn’t change her view of him, Konstantin spoke.

“We don’t need to marry. Not anymore. Not when Eloise has money and power of her own.”

His blunt words landed straight in the middle of her heart, shattering it like glass.

“I’ll keep him here,” Konstantin said in her direction, without actually looking at her. “He can either give me a list of the relevant accounts and assets, or he can give them to the police. I have all the time in the world for him to make that decision.”

“What on earth? Eloise, tell me that...?” Lilja looked with agonized eyes from her husband to Konstantin’s grim expression to Eloise.

Regret rose to choke her voice as Eloise said, “I’m sorry, Mom. Let’s go home and talk. We’ll call Cyrus and he’ll explain.” As she nudged her mother out the door in front of her, she told Antoine, “Your suitcases will be on the stoop in an hour. Don’t come into the house.”

Konstantin entered the villa he’d only been in a handful of times. He and Ilias had both lived in Athens when not at school, but Konstantin wasn’t a social person. He had sent regrets to all the parties Ilias had invited him to through their early years. Later, Ilias had been in the US, so they had met for the odd sporting event or a beer if Konstantin happened to be there.

No, the last time he’d been here was immediately after Ilias was laid to rest. Konstantin had stood on the periphery while people ate finger food and made small talk. Eloise had looked a lot like she did now—as though the life force had been drained out of her.

That was his fault. He didn’t regret telling her the truth about Antoine, but he would always regret that she had had to hear about his parents the way she had.

“Mom’s lying down,” she said, hugging herself as she met him in the parlor. “She’s upset, obviously. I should have told her that Antoine had left me stuck in New York, but...” She rubbed her brow. “He had her convinced that I was growing up and leaving the nest so she didn’t question it too much. Cyrus has encouraged us to pursue a proper investigation, but he doubts there’ll be much fallout for Antoine beyond embarrassment, since Mom was in her right mind when she gave him control.”

“I should have checked on you both a lot sooner. That will always sit on my conscience.”

“Don’t—I don’t want to be anything on your conscience, Konstantin. I would hope I’m more than a duty or obligation to you by now?” Her brow pleated as she searched his expression.

He looked away, unable to express what she was to him because he could already feel that fragile connection between them thinning and fraying.

“The wedding is off.” He stated it first, because he knew it to be true. He had known it when Antoine brought up his past.

Agonized helplessness flashed across her expression, but she didn’t contradict him.

“Mom’s a wreck and she’s literally the only person I would want there. She’ll need me for a while. Then I have this Gordian knot to untangle.” She waved at the imaginary mountain of paperwork. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to marry you.”

“This all happened very quickly.” Ten days. He hadn’t even been allotted his full twelve days. That was par for the course for him so he brushed aside how cheated he felt.

“Don’t.” She took a few faltering steps toward him. “Don’t act like I was caught up in the moment. I love you , Konstantin. I’ve always loved you. You know that. I was hoping you were starting to love me, too.”

He drew a breath that felt laced with arsenic. “You told me a few days ago that you had spent years idolizing someone who doesn’t exist. What you’re feeling is sexual desire and nostalgia and gratitude. It’s not really love, Eloise.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say to someone. Do you realize that?” She moved so she was in his line of sight, but not close enough to touch. Her chin set with belligerence and her fists knotted at her sides. “Have your feelings toward me been equally superficial? Were you horny and mildly entertained and now you’re bored so you’re cutting things short?”

She was right. They were stooping to saying horrible things.

“Our marrying is one of those things that looks like it will work, but it never would have. I know what you want, Eloise. You want me to be emotionally accessible and I’m not . I would hurt you in the long run so let’s end it now while the damage is minimal.”

“How would you hurt me? You’re not...violent.” She swallowed the last word.

“No.” Although he’d had a moment there with Antoine when he could have happily pushed him out a window. “And I’ll do my best to quash it if Antoine tries to take my story to the press. I’ve done it before, but the day will come when it gets out. It’s not something you want to be married to. You don’t want it overshadowing your mother, either.”

“Was that what you didn’t want to tell me at Christmas?” she asked with such gentle care that his heart contracted.

“Yes.” And he didn’t want to tell her now, but he would give her the bones of it. “My father was not unlike Antoine, capable of charm to hide the fact he was a monster. My mother kept seeing him even after my grandfather expressly forbade it. When she got pregnant, they married and my father moved us to an isolated farm. He had violent outbursts that grew worse over time. She tried to leave, asked my grandfather for help, but he refused. He told her she’d made her bed.”

“That’s awful.” She rubbed her chest.

“Yes. One day, he caught us trying to leave and really went after her. I got in the way and he knocked me across the cottage. I don’t remember anything afterward except waking in the hospital to the news my mother was dead. My grandfather came to get me. I never saw my father again.”

“Konstantin—”

He held up a hand to ward her off. “I’m not telling you this for sympathy, Eloise. I want you to understand why... God.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to look back or talk about it or build new memories because those things don’t last . I don’t want to learn to care about someone only to have him crash his damned airplane. I don’t want to fall in love with someone—” he pointed accusingly at her “—and have her taken from me.”

“Nobody is taking me. You’re pushing me away.”

“I’m taking control of the inevitable.”

“You don’t know it’s inevitable. You’re making it happen so you can prove to yourself that you’re right.” Her mouth quivered as she removed her ring and offered it. “But I won’t force you to stay in a relationship you don’t want. I’ve always known my love for you was unrequited. I won’t keep fooling myself that you’ll come around. At least I tried. I’ll be able to move on now. Thank you for helping us. We’ll be okay now.”

Would they? He wouldn’t.

“That’s yours.” He ignored the ring and walked out, heart on a pike. He was so nauseated he nearly threw up in the car.