The Winner Takes It All: Winning Back His Wife / In Her Rival's Arms / Royally Seduced

Cullen was wrong. She could never be the kind of wife he wanted. “I’m a loner, not the family type. Nothing like Carly, Zoe and Hannah. Or your mother and sisters…”

“What about my mom and sisters?” he asked.

Oops. Sarah hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “It’s nothing.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“It’s just…” Sarah rubbed her mouth. “Well, it was pretty obvious your family didn’t like me much.”

Cullen flinched as if she’d slapped him. “That’s not true.”

Sarah raised her left shoulder, but she knew her gut instincts were 100 percent correct. She wasn’t proper wife material. “It is. The way your family acted that Easter. I’ve never felt so inadequate in my life.”

He made a face. “Come on.”

The disbelief in his voice set her nerves even more on edge. She hadn’t fitted into his family’s out-of-this world holiday at all. “I wanted to help with dinner. I tried to help. But I only got in their way. They kicked me out of the kitchen and told me to go find you.”

“That’s because they didn’t want to put you to work. You were a guest.”

“A guest.” The word tasted like ash in her mouth. “I was your wife. I thought I was family.”

She’d wanted to be family. More than anything. But that hadn’t happened. She could never be the kind of wife he would want. That was when she’d realized his family would never accept her and Cullen wouldn’t want her.

Tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away.

He started to speak, then stopped himself.

Sarah wasn’t surprised he had nothing more to say. She picked at the cast’s padding around her fingers.

Cullen leaned toward her. “I should have told you. Warned you.”

The regret, thick and heavy, in his voice shocked her. “About what?”

His clouded gaze met hers. “Easter. My family. Blaine.”

“What does your twin brother have to do with this?” she asked.

“Everything.”

The one word sent a chill down Sarah’s spine. Cullen’s grief and sadness were as clear as they’d been that afternoon at Red Rocks when he’d mentioned his twin brother who had died. That was the one and only time he’d spoken of Blaine. She’d asked a few questions, but he’d never answered them.

She reached for his hand. His skin felt cold, not warm as usual. “You told me Blaine died when you were in college.”

“He died on Easter.”

Surprise washed over her. Cullen had never told her any details. “On Easter Sunday?”

Cullen nodded. His hand wrapped around hers. Squeezed. “Blaine used to love Easter. He always wanted more decorations and food. There were never enough eggs and candy for him. Because of what happened, my family goes all out on the holiday. Overcompensates.”

She sat back, stunned and angry he hadn’t shared this information with her. Not telling her about breaking his arm as a kid was one thing, but this…