her, she’d made it abundantly clear that she never wanted him to touch her again.
Rejection on that scale was unheard of for him, and he found he didn’t like it. He didn’t even find it tolerable. And the memory of the rejection, combined with his current mood, was starting to feel a bit deadly.
“Good afternoon,” she said, her tone a touch too bright. “Lunch is just about to be served on the patio. I didn’t know if you would be home, but just in case, I had a setting put out for you.” She whisked past him and toward the back of the house.
He followed, unsure of what to think. Now she’d succeeded in putting him on his back foot twice in less than twenty-four hours. He didn’t like that, either.
The little fenced-in patio that sat behind the house was, in fact, prepared for lunch. Ham and mushroom feuillités, macaroons and café au laits were spread out on the bistro table. There was also a plate of fruit and a high chair for Leena.
“You have taken over as mistress of the house, I see,” he said, taking a seat and a bite of feuillité.
“I am your wife for all intents and purposes, Alik, and we are attempting to be a family. That means I should be at home in your homes, right?”
“I suppose,” he said. He hadn’t thought much about it before. Not initially. Because he had thought of them as guests in his home, a home that he wouldn’t be in. Now things were becoming complicated. More tangled together.
He found that, for some reason he no longer saw it as sufficient to simply leave Leena in a luxury home to be provided for monetarily. Perhaps that was because of what Jada had said to him about fathers. About her father.
He’d never had one, not that he’d known, so had no idea the function a father could serve. But he did know that he didn’t want his daughter growing up to be like him.
“Yes,” he said, this time firmer, more sure, “it is right that you should take over that position. And also, I wanted to talk to you about living arrangements.”
“What about them?”
“We must live together. I do travel a lot, and when I’m on short-term trips staying in hotels, I imagine Leena would find it more stable to stay at home. But when I am on a long-term business trip, for more than a month, or when I change residence for part of the year I would like you both to come with me.”
Jada’s eyes widened as she finished buckling Leena in her high chair and took a seat across from him. “Really? And what about your…social life?”
She meant women. He could tell by the frost in her tone. He didn’t know why, but he found her jealousy gratifying. “I will find a way to manage it discreetly. It will not be a problem for either of you.”
“I see.” She looked down into her coffee. “What made you change your mind?”
“What you said the other day about your father. About all the difference he made to you. About how his presence taught you what sort of treatment to expect.” He looked at Leena, so small and innocent, her cheeks round. And she looked at him, a smile spreading over her face. He’d never really paused to look at her before. Not once in the past few weeks. Not closely.
Now that he did, he felt like his chest was too full. Like his heart would be crushed with the pressure building there.
“I would not want Leena to choose a man like me,” he said. He thought back to the reports he’d seen today. No, he’d never been the sort of man to press unwanted advances on a woman, but he still felt disturbed by it all. By the thought of Leena as a woman who would have to go out in the world and deal with men who wanted to hurt her. Or even men who didn’t want to hurt her, but might, as they used her for their own selfish ends.
“I wouldn’t want to teach her to expect that the man in her life should be absent, that he should be concerned with his own well-being, rather than hers. I would not want her to believe that she should accept money and physical comfort over love.”
“Alik…you can give her more than you think. I know you can.”
“I don’t know it,” he said, the pressure in his chest growing