A Game of Vows. Maisey Yates

she’d agreed to his foolish marriage scheme. It seemed foolish to him now, anyway. He’d been such a stupid boy, full of his own importance, laughing at life.

      Yes, he certainly had changed.

      Even now, sitting across from Hannah, as he had done that day he’d coerced her into marriage, he couldn’t understand the man that he’d been. Couldn’t understand why it had been so amusing. Why he had felt entitled to drag her into his game.

      He had been convinced that being near her would …

      “I noticed,” she said, her voice soft.

      “I suppose you did.” He lifted his wineglass to his lips again, trying to ignore the defeat that came when the crisp flavor hit his tongue. Wine didn’t even make him feel the same. It used to make him feel lighter, a bit happier. Now it just made him tired. “It is of no consequence. With the changes came no desire for me to change back.” It wasn’t true, not entirely, but he was hardly going to give her reason to pity him. He could take a great many things, but not pity.

      “Is this why you’re having problems with Vega?” she asked.

      “Essentially.” The word burned. “I had someone hired to …” He chose his words carefully. He disliked the word help almost as much as he disliked saying he couldn’t do something. Of course, the verbal avoidance game was empty, because it didn’t change reality. “To oversee the duties of managing finances and budgets. Someone else to do taxes. Neither did an adequate job, and now I find myself with some issues to work out, and no one that I trust to handle it.”

      “And you trust me?” Her tone was incredulous, blue eyes round.

      “I don’t know that I trust you, but I do know your deepest and darkest secrets. In the absence of trust, I consider it a fairly hefty insurance policy.”

      She took another sip of her wine. “There are some things about you that are still the same,” she said.

      “What things?” he asked, desperate to know.

      For a moment, she felt like the lifeline he’d built her up to be. No one else seemed to see anything in him from before. They saw him as either diminished in some way, or frightening. His mother and sister, loving as ever, seemed to pity him. He felt smothered in it.

      “You’re still incredibly amused by what you perceive to be your own brilliance.”

      Unbidden, a laugh escaped his lips. “If a man can’t find amusement with himself, life could become boring.”

      “A double entendre?” She arched her brow.

      “No, I’m afraid not. Further evidence of the changes in me, I suppose.” And yet with Hannah, sometimes he felt normal. Something akin to what and who he had been. It felt good to exchange banter, to have her face him, an almost-friendly adversary. For the moment.