The Bridegroom's Secret

“Maybe an apology, an excuse, a reason?” was all she managed in reply.

He frowned at her, as if she’d said something stupid. “What reason could I have? What excuse would work? Would an apology help you feel better, or make me any less of a jerk for not telling you about Molly before?”

Strangely his admission that he’d acted badly only made her angrier with him. “Maybe not— though it might have helped to have had some preparation time to meet her, say, a bit more than an hour?” She coughed a final few times and finally felt clear—at least in her throat and lungs. “You’re right, nothing could make you less of a jerk now, but it doesn’t mean I don’t deserve an apology, does it?”

“No. I should have told you earlier, Julie. I’m sorry.”

She kept her gaze on her hands, formed into fists on her lap. She mumbled, “Of course you are. Such a gentleman.” The words sounded sarcastic, even to her ears. She’d expected the words—but right now, she didn’t feel like forgiving him.

As if in echo of her thoughts, he said, “Don’t think it, Julie. Say it. Say what you’re feeling, about Molly—and about me.”

That was the trouble. There were too many things she wanted to say, to ask. Would he know the answers? Did she want to hear them?

Suddenly she felt tired of living in this limbo. She hated feeling so cold, so numb inside, filled with fear and regret, not knowing what was going on between them or why. Even the shock running through her veins was better than the nothingness. It was time. She had to know.

“Is that where you went when you flew out of Boston those few times, and didn’t want me to come?”

He nodded. “I don’t see enough of Molly, but I fly down to spend time with her whenever I can. I want her to know who her father is, that I care about her. I want her to be sure her dad didn’t just abandon her.”

Filled with the strangest mixture of fury, betrayal and relief, she turned away. Glad to just feel, words slipped out she never meant to speak. “I wondered, especially the fourth time two months back…”

A short silence. “You thought I had another woman?” He spoke slowly, as if he’d just come to the realisation. The shock in his voice was clear.

She noticed her thumbnail was in her mouth. Chewing her nails under stress was a habit she thought she’d broken when she was seventeen. Pulling it out, she made herself shrug. “What would you have thought had it been me taking off for parts unknown, making obvious excuses for you not to come—especially when you went just ten days before the party? What would you think if I had a male working partner—an ex-lover, no less—and I’d disappeared for a week just before our engagement party?”

After another long stretch of quiet, he answered in a curt tone. “Maybe I’d have thought the same things you obviously did— but I would have asked you about it. If I was given a chance to see you alone, or you allowed me to speak to you, that is.” No longer polite, his voice sounded cold, furious.

“So if you’d seen me alone in the past ten months—since you started disappearing without explanation—and I’d asked if you had another lover, would you have told me about your daughter?” she challenged, turning to face him with a fury to match his. “You wouldn’t have said ‘it’s just work’ again? You might have actually trusted me with something about your life the magazines don’t know?”

His jaw tightened. “You’ve thought that for ten months?”

She sighed. “You should know I would never have become your lover, let alone become engaged to you, if I’d thought it back then.”

He was pale, his face remote, untouchable. “Well, you should know I don’t cheat. I’ve never cheated on a woman in my life. Except the day you kissed me,” he finished with a hard irony that made her feel…feel—“and I went straight to her and told her I’d met you, and ended it. After fourteen months together, you should know better than to accuse me of that. Sneaking around behind someone’s back, saying one thing to one woman and promising the other something else, lying and manipulating and hurting everyone is the act of a selfish loser and pathetic coward.”

There was no way he was lying; but the fury in his eyes—the shadows of something in the past—told her this was a wound he wouldn’t let her touch.

Another door he’d closed in her face.

“I went to see Molly that time because she called to tell me about her mom getting married. It sounded like she needed me,” he informed her, his tone, so restrained and polite, hitting her like a whiplash. “But it was only a week before our engagement party, and it seemed the wrong time to tell you I have a daughter. But right now it feels as if any time would have been a bad time. If you can’t believe I was faithful to you, I was always going to be in the wrong, no matter what I did.”

She felt the heat stain her cheeks, an unspoken acknowledgement that he was right—but it only made her angrier. He had no right to be right…correct—oh, to hell with semantics! He had to be in the wrong now!

“So you think I wouldn’t have understood if you’d told me at the start of our relationship?” she challenged. “Why was it a bad time then? Was it always going to be a bad time to tell me?” A shaft of uncertainty lanced through her. “Am I so hard to confide in? Am I so…so non-understanding? Why was it so intimidating to tell me about Molly?” Or about anything else, it seems…

He shook his head and sighed. “It wasn’t like that. You have your ways of making it hard to confide, but not in the way you mean.”

“I see,” she whispered, looking at her hands again.

“No, I don’t think you do.” His hands gripped the steering wheel. His face was pale and set, looking forward, out to the passing traffic. Shutting another door in her face. Making it impossible to ask what he meant.

“Does Molly know about me? That you have a fiancée?” she asked after a while, but knew the answer before it came.

“Not yet.” Again, no apology. No excuse.

Rebellion rose higher in her throat. She wanted the truth. She needed to hear the answers. She had to know. And she wanted to deck him!

But did she hit first or ask first? She was too furious to ask the question that had been hovering in her mind for months. Why should she ask if he’d ever loved her in truth, or was marrying her to avoid public humiliation on both their parts? He’d only give the perfect reassurance. And he might even believe it was the truth…but she wouldn’t believe it. She wasn’t the trusting fool she’d been a few months ago.

“I don’t know you,” she finally said, and felt a massive sense of relief fill her. That was it, exactly what worried her the most. Worse still, the anger that had sustained her over the past few minutes was fading, leaving her vulnerable. She couldn’t attack him, couldn’t maintain the emotion that kept a distance from him. Truth was all she had left.

The cool, well-bred look disappeared from his face. “What?” His voice rang with disbelief.

“I don’t know you.” She wanted to look away, to put up a barrier against the utter stupidity of the situation, but she forced herself to keep looking at him. “I don’t think I ever did.”

The bewilderment in his eyes told her that it was the last thing he’d expected to hear from her. “How can you say that? You know me better than anyone.”

She shook her head, seeing he honestly believed it. “Tell me how I know you that well—or at all—when you’ve never told me anything that was close to your heart.”

His jaw clenched shut. His eyes were hard chips of ice. It was obvious he wasn’t going to answer, if he had an answer to give.

She sighed. “We’ve been together fourteen months, engaged for five months, and you never told me about your daughter. You never told her about me. What does that say about how much you trust me? If you can’t tell your daughter about me until the day I’m going to meet her, four weeks before our wedding, what does it say about how much you love and trust me?”

His hands gripped the steering wheel until the knuckles showed white. “It wasn’t like that. You’re misinterpreting—”

“How else could I interpret it?” Suddenly she was fighting tears. “The omissions—all of them—speak more than a thousand words. I’m good enough to take to bed, to get a ring and pretty words, but you didn’t tell me one of the most treasured parts of your life. You didn’t want me to meet your own child.” She bit her lip but said it. “You don’t love me, Matt. I don’t think you ever did.”

A long silence, so dark it touched her heart, wounded her like a knife. “This has nothing to do with how I feel for you. Not all families are close, or treasure each other as yours does, Julie.”