Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Returning from an internal meeting with Dane to find Melinda sat in the reception area near my desk, I smiled. Her answering smile was so shaky and strained it made my own dim. “Hi, Melinda.”

“Hi,” she said, rising from her seat. Her gaze danced from me to Dane, who she couldn’t seem to look in the eye. “I hope you both managed to find time to have fun in New York.”

“We did, thank you,” said Dane. “What can we do for you?”

“I was hoping to talk to Vienna for a few minutes. About some reception-related things,” she hurried to add.

His steely eyes scrutinized her, and I could sense he wasn’t buying it. “All right.” He cut his gaze to me. “Join me in my office once you’re done.”

“Will do,” I said.

He nodded at her. “Take care, Melinda.”

Wearing yet another strained smile, she gave him a little wave. Once he’d disappeared into his office, she bit down on her lip and looked at me. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk in private?”

“You’re really starting to worry me now.” I glanced around and shrugged. “We can use the bathroom.”

We headed inside the restroom. After I’d checked that it was empty of people, I locked the main door and turned to Melinda. “Go on.”

She nervously rubbed her hands together. “I’m sorry in advance if any of this hurts you, but you have a right to know.”

“Okay.”

“Dane’s brother, Travis, came to see me. He was very nice, very polite. And very concerned for you.”

Oh, Lord. “Melinda—”

“He told me something. Something that has me very worried. He wanted to come to you about it, but he thought it might be less hard on you if you heard it from someone you love. Dane has a trust fund, Vienna. Hugh left it to him. But there are conditions. He has to be married before he can access it, and he has to be married before he’s thirty-eight or he can never touch it. Dane’s thirty-seven now.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “And?”

She looked at me, bewildered. “In light of that, don’t you think it’s a little suspicious that Dane pushed you to marry him so soon? I’m not saying he doesn’t care for you. I believe he does. But I also believe there’s a good chance that he only wanted to marry you so fast because he wanted to get his hands on the trust fund.”

God, Travis was such a bastard. “Have you told my father?” Because Simon might very well lose his shit.

“No. I haven’t even told Wyatt yet. I wanted to tell you first.” She touched my arm. “I’m sorry to be the person who gives you this news. I know that it must hurt.”

“I already knew about the trust fund.”

She gaped. “You knew?”

I nodded. “I’ve known about it since before Dane and I started dating. He told me himself.”

“And it didn’t ring any alarm bells when he proposed so soon? You didn’t think to ask him to wait a while just to see what he’d say?”

Ugh, now I was going to have to tell even more freaking lies than I already had. “He didn’t push me into marrying him in Vegas, Melinda. He said he’d like me to, but that he’d give me a fairytale wedding back at home if that was really what I wanted.”

“Then why didn’t you wait?”

“Because it wasn’t really the dress and reception and flowers that I wanted. I just wanted him. I’ve always wanted him. Travis isn’t the nice man he pretended to be. He neglected to tell you a few things. Like that he’s well aware I know about all this. Like that he’s been trying to cause trouble between me and Dane for a while. Like that Dane’s trust fund would be divided between his brothers if he didn’t meet the conditions to access it. Travis just wants his share. He isn’t concerned about me. He wants me out of the way, even if it means ruining my and Dane’s marriage.”

Melinda’s expression softened slightly. “Poor Dane. To have his own brother working against him like that …” She exhaled heavily. “I can’t say I’m totally convinced that Dane’s rush to marry you wasn’t prompted by the conditions of the trust fund. It just seems too … iffy for me. And I’m shocked that you’re so wrapped up in him you don’t even care if he proposed so soon for the right reason.”

“And if it had been you and Wyatt? Would you have asked him to wait just to prove to you that what he felt was real?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I like that I can help him access the trust fund. Dane’s a man who has pretty much everything. But this is something that I can do for him that he wouldn’t have been able to do himself. And if we later divorce at some point, I won’t regret that I helped him.”

“Vienna …”

“You said you believe he cares for me.”

“I do.”

“Then can’t that be enough?”

She turned away and thrust a hand through her hair. Seconds ticked by as she said nothing. Finally, she faced me again. “It won’t be enough for Wyatt. He’s a suspicious creature. He’s going to want to talk to Dane about this.”

And that “talk” would no doubt get heated fast. “I’d imagine that’s what Travis hoped for.”

“What?”

“That you, Wyatt, and Simon would all turn on Dane. Just bear that in mind when you tell Wyatt what Travis told you, and ask Wyatt to bear it in mind, too.” I escorted Melinda to the elevator. I waited until it began to descend before heading to Dane’s office.

I knocked on the door, and he quickly bid me to enter. I walked in, closed the door behind me, and leaned back against it with a heavy sigh.

His brow quirked. “Problem?”

“Travis has been up to his old tricks again.” I pushed away from the door, took the seat opposite him, and brought him up to speed. “Melinda doesn’t suspect that the marriage is fake. She believes you ‘care’ for me; she’s just not so sure that you married me so soon purely becauseyou care for me.”

His expression hard, Dane drummed his fingers on the desk. “I suppose I should have seen this coming.”

“At least Travis never went to Simon. We’d have found ourselves facing Deacon for sure. He likes to settle things with his fists.”

Leaning back in his chair, Dane rubbed at his jaw … just as he’d rubbed my pussy that morning to get me wet before he took me hard in my bed. I shook off the memory fast, set on keeping work and play completely separate—something which wasn’t proving to be easy for me, but Dane seemed to find it simple enough. Then again, he’d never struggled with our attraction. It was a wonder my ego was intact.

“We should tell Simon, though, just in case Travis decides to,” he said.

I frowned. “You’re serious?”

“We need to do damage control. Invite your father and foster parents to our house tonight. I’ll tell them about the trust fund and convince them that it wasn’t the motivation behind my proposal. I’ll also make it clear that neither Travis nor Hope’s word can be trusted.”

Ignoring the tingly feeling that the statement “our house” had given me, I said, “I’m not sure it’ll be so easy to convince them. I have plenty of faith in your acting skills, but I know my family. None of them trust easily.”

“A little like you.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “Even if you do manage to convince them you’re not the guilty party here, you’ll still find yourself being confronted by all three of them at some point.”

“Why?”

“Because once we divorce after being married for only a year, they’ll take it as an indication that this was about your trust fund all along.” Which was why I’d never meant for them to find out about it. “They’ll be beyond furious.”

Dane twisted his mouth. “Then maybe we should stay married for longer than a year.”

Um, say what? “Longer?” I was surprised the word didn’t come out on a squeak.

“Yes.” He turned to his computer.

Frowning at the blatant dismissal, I shook my head. No. No, that was a bad idea. Walking away from Dane after the year was over would be hard enough. Prolonging the whole thing would only make it more difficult. “That’s not necessary.”

“So you want it to look obvious to your family that this was a sham?”

“Well, no—”

“Then you might want to consider putting an extension on it. Give it some thought. We’ll discuss it again at a later date.”

“Just how big of an extension are we talking?”

“That depends on a few things,” he answered vaguely, typing away.

I was about to question him further, but then his cell phone rang. He immediately answered it, of course. Shooting him a scowl that he didn’t see, I pushed out of the chair and left the office.

Taking my position behind my desk, I got back to work. The entire time, one question kept floating around my brain: If I did agree to an extension, what “things” would its duration depend on?

My family turned up at the house shortly after dinner. All I’d told Simon was that Dane had a little something he wanted to explain, which was no doubt why there was none of the hostility in my father’s eyes that could be seen in Wyatt’s. Melinda had obviously told her husband everything.

I offered them drinks, but only Simon and Dane took me up on the offer. The two men fell into an easy chat while I made them coffee. They each then grabbed their own cup.

Dane took my free hand in his and urged my family to follow us through the kitchen and out onto the patio. It was incredibly impressive with its lavish stonework, ample seating, outdoor kitchen, stone firepit, and koi pond.

Simon let out a low whistle. “Wow. Looks just like my backyard.”

I chuckled, but my foster parents didn’t even crack a smile. Annoyance made my nostrils flare. I couldn’t blame them for being suspicious—they were right to be. But they’d never once been rude to Heather’s boyfriends, even though said boyfriends were married. So it didn’t seem fair that they’d act this way toward my husband.

Dane invited my family to take a seat as he sat me beside him on one of the rattan sofas. For a moment, no one spoke. There were only the sounds of fire snapping in the pit and water lapping at the edges of the pond.

“We wanted you to come here tonight so I could share something with you,” Dane told them, curving his arm around me. “You’ve heard me mention my uncle Hugh before. He took in my brothers and me after our father killed himself.”

Melinda gasped with the same shock that slapped me.

“He shot himself in the head to escape the many debts he’d racked up,” Dane went on, sounding remarkably unemotional. “He could have sold the large house we lived in and bought something smaller; could have sold his rental properties, shares, or small businesses. But he was too prideful for that. He didn’t have it in him to face people, to let them see how he’d failed. So he took his own life.”

I slid my arm around Dane’s waist, my shock giving way to anger at his father for being so proud and selfish.

“I’m so sorry,” Melinda said to him. “That must have been terrible for you.”

“Not as much as you might think. He wasn’t a good person,” said Dane, a dark note in his tone. “A man like that has no business having children. He’s the reason my brothers and I aren’t close.”

I barely stopped myself from frowning, wondering just what exactly he meant by the latter. I couldn’t question him; my family would think it weird that I didn’t already know.

“My mother had died of cancer years before that, so we had nowhere to go.” Dane looked down at me. “We could have easily ended up in foster care as you did, but we had Hugh. He didn’t just take us in. He tried to teach us how to make something of ourselves, how to play to our strengths and be mindful of our weaknesses.”

Ah, so Hugh had been his mentor.

Dane sipped at his coffee. “The lessons didn’t stick with my youngest brother, Travis. He and his wife are people who want the easy way in life. That’s why he married early. You see, Hugh left trust funds for each of us, but we weren’t allowed to access them until we were married. He didn’t want us to make the mistake he made: to never have a family of our own.”

Pausing, Dane smoothed his hand up my back and palmed my nape. “I didn’t want to build success on the heels of Hugh’s. I wanted to build something for myself. Wanted to implement all the lessons he taught me. Wanted the trust fund to be purely a gift from him, not the kickstart to success that Travis perceived it to be.

“But, as Vienna once pointed out, I’m never really satisfied with what I’ve achieved. I always have that nagging sensation that I need to do more. I guess that comes from feeling like you have to live for two people. I lost my twin when I was eight.”

Simon winced, and Wyatt’s scowl faltered.

I tightened my arm around Dane in a silent show of support.

“My cousin lost her twin as a child,” said Melinda. “She suffered from survivor’s guilt all her life; she tried to keep her twin’s spirit alive by living for both of them. She also pointedly avoided letting others close.”

“It’s hard to keep someone at a distance when they’re part of your everyday life,” said Dane, casting a meaningful look my way. “But I tried. I held out for four years. Four very long years. Then I realized that all I’d really done was waste time. I didn’t want to waste anymore. I didn’t want to risk that someone would come and steal her from under me. So, yes, I moved fast—as you all noticed.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” said Simon.

“Travis wasn’t happy when I started dating Vienna.” Dane took another sip of his coffee. “He tried coming between us right from the start.”

Simon’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

“Because our trust funds came with an additional stipulation—if we didn’t marry by the age of thirty-eight, the fund would be divided between our siblings. Travis and his wife, Hope, want his share of mine. To them, Vienna is in the way of that. They tried making her doubt my feelings for her by telling her about the trust fund. She already knew about it, so that didn’t get them anywhere. Travis’s attempts to poison her mind about me failed.” Dane’s gaze cut to Melinda. “Which is no doubt why he went to you.”

Simon looked at her. “Travis spoke to you?”

Melinda nodded, but her eyes were on Dane. “He made it sound like you only married Vienna so you could access the trust fund,” she said, not sounding convinced that it wasn’t the case. “I wouldn’t have believed him. But when he mentioned you’d lose access to it if you didn’t marry by the time you turned thirty-eight—which is less than a year away …”

Simon’s gaze sharpened and then narrowed in suspicion. Shit.

Dane pursed his lips. “My guess? Travis hoped that if he could poison all your minds against me, then you’d get between me and Vienna in a way that he wasn’t able to do. I’d say he’s counting on you to encourage her to leave me. You may in fact intend to, despite what I’ve told you tonight. If so, he did his job well.”

“Dane didn’t pressure me to marry him in Vegas,” I told my family. “He asked. I said yes.”

“You can see why it looks suspicious,” said Wyatt, a little belligerent.

“Depending on what angle you look at it from, yes, it does,” Dane conceded. “But I don’t need my uncle’s money. I’ve never wanted to need or rely on it. If I had, I’d have done as Travis did and married at the age of eighteen just to get my hands on it.”

“Why is he so desperate to have a share of yours?” Simon asked, his eyes still narrowed. “He can’t have squandered all of his own.”

“Probably not all of it,” said Dane. “He received it in three separate, age-dependency payments over the years. He received the final one at the age of thirty. I doubt he’s spent all of it, but I do think he’s banked on having his share of mine.”

“He’s thought of it as a fourth payout, so he hasn’t been careful with his own,” guessed Simon.

“What about Kent?” asked Wyatt.

“He always swore he’d give me his share of my fund,” said Dane.

Wyatt tilted his head. “But you don’t trust that he will.”

“The only person I trust is Vienna,” Dane told him, sounding so utterly sincere I wanted to believe it was true. “She’s never betrayed me. Never let me down. Never asked or expected anything of me. She won’t even let me buy her a new car,” he grumbled.

“You did it anyway,” I pointed out. The brand-new vehicle had appeared in the garage a day ago.

Dane’s mouth twitched. “You’ll use it eventually. I’ve seen the way you look at it.”

Melinda sighed. “I want to believe that you’re all about Vienna; that your marrying her so soon isn’t whatsoever connected to the stipulations of your trust fund. But the timing just seems too coincidental.”

Dane shrugged. “I can’t make you believe me. If what I’ve shared with you here hasn’t rid your mind of doubt, there’s nothing more I can do.”

“I do appreciate that you told us all this—I know it couldn’t have been whatsoever easy,” she went on. “It’s just … I have to feel sure of you, because Vienna’s heart is on the line.”

I straightened. “I’m sure of him.”

“I know that,” she said. “But sometimes we can be so emotionally wrapped up in a situation that we don’t see it logically. I want to be positive that you’ve made the right choice,” she said, like I was naïve and didn’t know my own mind.

Okay, that got my back up. “Really? Heather splits married couples up on a regular basis. Couples like you and Wyatt, only rich. She uses one man after another just because she can. That’s not the ‘right choice.’ You’ve ignored it. You’ve pretended it away. You’ve never once lectured her over it or been rude to her partners, most of whom were still married at the time she introduced you to them. But you’ll question my ability to make a rational decision, and you’ll expect Dane to explain himself to you? Sorry, but that seems just a little bit shitty.”

Melinda grimaced. “Vienna—”

Dane cupped my jaw. “Don’t, baby girl. Don’t let this cause an argument. Travis would just love it if this created so much drama that you felt you had to choose between me and your family. Don’t give him that power.”

“We’d never ask her to choose us over you,” Melinda told him.

“We just worry for Vienna,” said Wyatt.

“I understand that,” said Dane, sliding his hand from my jaw to my nape. “I’m glad that you care for her as much as you do. I invited you here tonight and shared these things with you because I don’t want Travis to come between her and the three of you. I don’t want her to lose the people she loves. As I said, I can’t make you believe me. But I’d ask that you don’t make this difficult for Vienna. Don’t make her suffer for whatever doubts you may have. She’s never done anything other than believe in me. She doesn’t deserve to be punished for that.”

“We don’t want to punish her for it or cause problems for her.” Melinda looked down at her hands. “We made mistakes with Heather. There are things that you may believe we should take her to task over. But if we do that, she might keep Junior from us.” She met my eyes. “We couldn’t handle that.”

“I know,” I said. “But if you’re going to sit back and let her live her life as she pleases, you can surely do the same for me. That’s all I’m asking.”

Simon sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I know what it’s like to be let down by family, Dane. I know what that does to a person. So I know it couldn’t have been at all easy for you to let Vienna in, to let yourself love her.” He paused. “You married her solely because you love her? Really?”

Dane nodded once. “She’s the only woman I ever have loved.”

“I believe that,” said Simon. “More, I believe in Vienna. If she says that this isn’t about your trust fund, I’ll accept that. And I definitely won’t give your asshole of a brother the satisfaction of creating a divide between me and my daughter. But, having said that, if it ever turns out that my faith in you is misplaced, we’ll be having an entirely different conversation, and it won’t end pleasantly.” His gaze slid to me and softened. “Love you, sweetheart.”

I smiled. He was the best. “Love you, too.”

“I have to warn you to be careful,” Dane told him. “Travis or Hope may get the bright idea to approach you and feed you some tales. Please don’t be quick to believe what they tell you.”

Wyatt leaned forward. “If Vienna had asked you to wait and marry her at a later date, would you have agreed to that?”

“Yes,” replied Dane. “I’d hoped that she wouldn’t ask that of me, because I wanted her tied to me as fast as possible. But I would have waited and given her the fairytale wedding if she’d asked for it. She didn’t.”

Wyatt licked his bottom lip and sat up straight. He slowly nodded. “All right. I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt where it’s due. Just … don’t hurt our girl.”

“I can’t promise that,” said Dane. “But I can promise that it’s something I’d never want to do.”

All eyes turned to Melinda, who was biting hard on her lip and staring at the ground.

Finally, she looked up at me and weakly flapped her hands. “If you truly believe he married you for the right reason, I’ll trust that.”

In other words, she didn’t entirely trust him anymore, but she’d back down and let the situation lie. Given Melinda’s character, that was really the most I could have hoped for.

It was another half an hour before my family announced their intention to leave. The goodbyes between Dane and my foster parents were a little stiff, but Simon made an effort. My father was probably so willing to give him a chance because, having heard Dane claim his own father wasn’t a good man, Simon suspected he’d been abused. It was easy for your mind to go there when you’d been through it yourself. You knew it happened; knew what scars it could leave behind.

Dane had told me that he hadn’t been sexually abused, but he hadn’t said there’d been no abuse at all. I suspected that some awful shit had gone on in his house when he was a child. I just didn’t know what. And it wasn’t my place to ask.

After my family left, I stacked the empty coffee mugs into the dishwasher. “I’m sorry that you were put in a position where you felt the need to share all that stuff with them,” I told Dane, who was leaning against the counter, staring into space.

His gaze snapped to mine. “It’s not your fault.”

“I know. It’s Travis’s fault. And don’t think I don’t want to throttle him.” I closed the dishwasher. “You could have given me a heads-up that your father committed suicide—I almost fell off the sofa in shock.”

“I only wanted to talk about it once.”

I could understand that. “What are you going to do to Travis? Don’t tell me nothing, I won’t believe that. He’s ignored every warning you’ve given him. There’s no way you’ll simply issue him another one.”

Dane closed the distance between us and settled his hands on my hips. “I won’t do anything to him that he isn’t attempting to do to me.”

I frowned. “You plan to try to wreck his marriage?”

“Not quite.” Dane dipped his head and kissed the side of my neck. “Come take a shower with me.”

I swear my entire body brightened at the idea. Still, I pushed, “What are you going to do to him?”

“I already told you.”

“No, you replied to my question, but you didn’t actually answer it.”

Dane slid his hands down to palm my ass. “He’s not important. We’ve wasted enough minutes of our day talking about him. Let’s be done with that.” Tightening his grip on my butt, he hauled me up.

I curled my legs around his waist. “Translation: you’re not going to tell me?”

“Translation: I want to fuck you, and I don’t want him in your head while I do it.”

“Oh. All right, then.”