wasn’t me,” he said. There was emotion beneath his words, and she was startled by it. She was used to cool detachment from him, from a logical approach to things that simply couldn’t be reasoned out, in her opinion.
She shook her head. “Not necessarily.”
“She would be your husband’s daughter, if he were still alive.”
She closed her eyes and fought a wave of sadness as it washed over her. Typical of Alik to say, with overwhelming casualness, the most hurtful thing. And to not even realize or understand it. No, Sunil wouldn’t have been Leena’s father. Because with him, she wasn’t sure adoption would have ever happened. Thinking about that just confused her. Hurt her.
“But he’s not.” She opened her eyes again. “He’s not here. He’s not her father. And I’ve moved on from that.”
“You have moved on?”
She blinked, knowing her next words would be a lie. “Yes.”
“How? Explain to me how you have moved on? You have had other lovers?”
She hadn’t even been on a date. Hadn’t looked at another man. Hadn’t wanted to. Until Alik. And since she’d met him she still didn’t want to look at another man, she was just finding it difficult not to. “No. I was focused on the adoption.”
“Then how is it you’ve moved on?”
“How do you move on?” she asked. She knew he wouldn’t know. He didn’t understand things like that. Things like emotion and pain, things like what it meant to love someone. “I mean, really. That part of my life is a part of me. It’s who I am.”
“And what do you mean by that?”
“I spent most of my adult life being his wife. Learning how to live with him, as you do with any marriage. Cooking food just how he liked it.”
“Making love how he liked it?”
Her cheeks burned. “That too.”
“And what about what you like?”
“Marriage is compromise,” she said. “You give, your spouse gives. You form a new shape to accommodate them. And then when you lose them…”
“The changes don’t make sense?”
She nodded slowly. “Something like that.”
“She would, perhaps, be better off with your first husband than with me.”
His tone was rough now, an edge to it.
“I don’t resent your place in Leena’s life,” she said, realizing that it was true.
“I think you do.”
“No, Alik. I only resent your place in my life.”
“I see. And what about it do you find so objectionable?”
“You’re my husband,” she said, her voice cutting itself off, choking itself out. “And you shouldn’t be.”
“Tell me honestly, did you ever plan to marry again?”
“No.”
“Then why does it matter what title I have. You are all about the heart, Jada, in which case, to you, no matter if I’m your husband on paper, the fact that I’m not your husband in your heart is all that should matter.”
But it did. She wanted to scream it. Wanted to shout it to the heavens so he would understand. It mattered because only one man should ever have had the title. It mattered, but it shouldn’t. She knew that.
Signing a document wasn’t what forged a bond between people, and yet…there was something. Husband was still a meaningful position whether she wanted it to be or not. That was the real problem. Not that she felt nothing, but that she was starting to. And maybe it was down to Leena, to their connection with her.
That she could handle. Yes, they should feel bonded over Leena. They both wanted what was best for her and had acted in her best interest. So of course, they would feel a connection. Not that he did—she doubted Alik was bothered with her at all. But with her maternal instinct and all, it was logical she would feel something.
And that was all. She was sure of it.
“I don’t know how you can be so calm about it. This is hardly how I saw my life going.”
“Maybe then, that is the difference between you and me. I didn’t see my life going anywhere.”
“What does that mean?”
“Every day I got up and didn’t count on making it back to my bed that night to sleep. I lived every day like it would be my last one, and sometimes I made an attempt to make it my last one. Oh, not actively, but safety has never been high on my list of priorities. So it’s very hard to be disappointed at how your life has turned out when it’s a surprise that you’re still living at all.”
His words chilled her down to her bones, and at the same