“Did you go to jail?” Grimly, she forced herself to maintain eye contact.
“Only the four months awaiting trial. My parents had money, hired the best lawyers. They didn’t want the family name stained.” His hands slipped away and hers did with them, falling back to her sides. Everything around her felt cold and quiet. Adam didn’t look at her. “They cut off all contact with me afterward. I was disavowed. I had nothing. That was when I joined the army. The war was just getting going, so they were desperate for people. And I’d already proven I was willing to pull the trigger, so I went right to the top of the class.”
She swallowed hard. “That’s everything?”
“Yes. I suppose someone should have warned you.”
“Adam, you were just a kid…”
“I was seventeen.”
“Which is still a kid.”
“It’s not something you can excuse, Louise. Someone died.” He took a step past her and she stopped him, moving into his path and weaving her arms around his neck. Trying to reach him however she could. He turned his face away and his hands rose to disengage her. “Don’t…”
“You don’t,” she growled, stomping her foot on the hard floor. Juvenile but effective.
Wary eyes met hers. “Louise…”
“I need to hold you and you need me to, so just don’t.”
He rubbed his hands over her arms, then stopped, his fingers trying halfheartedly to pluck her from him. “Gideon was a good man. You deserve better. Maybe if we talk to the coordinator…”
“Gideon is dead. You are my husband. You,” she said, a strange sort of panic rising inside her, mixing with the anger. The thought of losing him unraveled her. Her hands balled into fists, anchored around his neck. “You think I’m some toy to be handed around? Fuck you.”
With a startled look, he lifted his chin and gazed down at her. “You’re really mad.”
“You’re talking divorce and you’re insulting me. Of course I’m mad.”
The skin between his brows ridged and she resisted the temptation to use it as a target, to slap the palm of her hand right there. Knock some sense into him. She wasn’t normally a violent person, but he brought out all sorts of complicated in her.
“I’m trying to do the right thing by you,” he said.
“What bullshit. I don’t get to walk away from you, so what gives you the right?”
“Louise…”
“No. Really.”
The man stopped and stared. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Yes, well—it’s hypocritical.”
“Ah.” His chest heaved against hers and his hands settled on her back, smoothing down her robe. “All right.”
She said nothing. Relief weakened her. If he hadn’t been there to prop her up she might have hit the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Okay.”
Her husband nodded slowly, eyes fixed on her.
“You were young and stupid—you made a mistake,” she said. “But Adam, I don’t want anyone else either.”
“No?”
“No.”
Adam lowered his forehead to hers, eyes sealing shut. He stayed quiet for a long time, standing there, holding her tight. It felt like a safe space in his arms, in their home. “I think I needed to hear you say that.”
She sighed and pressed her face to his. “Idiot.”
“That, not so much.” He smiled.
It was a beautiful thing, Adam Elliot’s smile. Louise licked her lips and drew herself up tall. Doing the right thing sucked. “And, if you need to go back to Earth for your father’s funeral, I understand.”
“I don’t.”
“Adam, you’re only going to get one chance at this. I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret,” she said. “I know family is complicated, but it seems as if your mother is reaching out to you.”
He made a noise of disapproval low in his throat. “Do we really have to keep talking about this? I thought we needed to get to work in the garden.”
“Fine. I’m only saying—”
“Princess.”
She shut her mouth with an audible snap and he pressed a light kiss to it.
“Thank you,” he said.
Louise let Adam lead her to the garden with her hand tight in his. It gave her the warm fuzzies, him wanting the connection. Holding hands was such a simple, sweet thing.
He took her a back way, moving at his usual impossible pace. Down a small, silent corridor of rough stone. Down six flights of stairs. On and on they went. Her shirt was clinging to her by the time they reached the bottom, despite the frosty temperature in the passageways.
“Are you trying to avoid someone?” she enquired of her husband’s back.
“No.”
“Because this feels a little out of the way. Taking the lift wouldn’t have been more direct, perhaps?”
“No.”
“Sure you’re not trying to avoid the chief, maybe?”
“No.”
“Just wondering.”
Adam’s com sounded and he drew it from his back pocket without slowing the pace. “We’ve got a meeting with the marriage coordinator tomorrow.”