If there was one thing he was going to make sure of it was that no one ever believed he was ashamed of his bride, he would never make her feel undervalued again. While aware that he didn’t have the skills to be the best of husbands and acknowledging that he hadn’t thought through what the future held and figured out all the details yet, he had faith that Ivy would be there with him through every kink.

He’d learn how to be better for her, because she had held up a mirror to him in a way no one else had ever dared to and he’d be eternally grateful to her for that.

‘Why the fuck did you do that?’ Brad asked, taking a snapping step in his direction. Brad rarely lost his cool, so his strong reaction intrigued Dax, but there was no time to address it because Mauri came in and they all shut up to look at the patriarch.

‘All of you get out of here,’ Mauri said, fixated on Dax. ‘My boy and I have to have talk.’

Chapter Twenty-One

No one questioned Mauri when he gave an order. So as much as it probably irked him, Brad slunk out of the room with Bruno at his heels. Mauri didn’t sit at the desk as he usually would when conducting business, he gestured to the vast leather couch in the corner and Dax took his invitation to sit on it.

‘It’s a shame, we haven’t had one of our talks in a while. We should get back into the habit of it, don’t you think?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ Dax said, growing up he’d been brought to Mauri regularly and they’d talk. The private audience that he was granted with the patriarch was envied by others and Dax didn’t realise how important that relationship was until they’d lost the routine.

‘Do you want a drink?’ Mauri asked, opening a palm toward the Waterford, but Dax shook his head and rubbed his curled fingers around the back of his neck.

‘No.’ It was still a bit early in the day to be mixing martinis or sipping scotch.

‘Coffee?’ Mauri asked. ‘You look tired.’

‘I’ve been on the go for a while,’ Dax said, noting that Brad got his impenetrable emotion disguise from his father’s side.

‘I can tell,’ Mauri said, coming over to seat himself in the arm chair perpendicular to Dax’s spot on the couch. ‘Something is troubling you.’

‘Gee, I wonder what would make you think that?’ Dax said, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees and his hands clasped between them. His back talk frustrated him because it wasn’t something he’d have used when Mauri was around in the past, not until Ivy came into his life.

‘You’ve been in the ring.’

As his bruises would have portrayed. ‘As I often am.’

‘You let your opponent disrespect you.’

Mauri spoke calmly and his lack of reaction to the events with Ivy riled Dax more. He was learning fast what it was like to be on the receiving end of Mauri’s displeasure. The old man was toying with him, like a cat with a mouse. Dax didn’t play nicely when he was the prey.

‘Yeah, he got a few hits in, he was bigger than me.’ He tried to play along, but set his jaw and tightened his fingers around the other fist, feeling the overwhelming urge to pummel something.

‘That’s never mattered to you before,’ Mauri said. ‘Somehow you use their size against them—‘

‘Am I here to talk tactics?’ Dax exclaimed. ‘Because if that’s the only thing that’s on the table I’d rather come back later.’

Dax got up, but Mauri ordered him back to his seat. ‘Sit down, Dax.’ He did. ‘I don’t know why you’re here at all, boy.’

‘Benny told me that you were looking for me and I always come when called.’

Saying it aloud made his blood congeal. He was reminded of how Ivy had referred to him in the early days as a lapdog; more and more he could see that she was right. Whether she had meant it then or it was designed to anger him, it didn’t matter.

Now he saw that running Mauri’s errands had been such a way of life for him since he was a young child that he never thought to stop and question what he was doing or even if he wanted to be a part of this at all.

Worse was the sickness that churned in his abdomen, it was there because disappointing Mauri made him feel inferior. The control that his surrogate parent wielded probably wasn’t healthy. Gaining the acceptance or pride of a parental figure had never figured in Dax’s conscious psyche. Yet, he knew now that his actions had shamed and disappointed Mauri and that somehow made Dax feel like less of a man. So his self-worth really was tied to the opinion of this one man.

‘The girl was alone with the seamstresses yesterday and they left her to retrieve something from the car, when they got back, she was gone… We couldn’t find you and you were the last one seen leaving this property… Do you want to tell me where she is?’

‘She’s at my place,’ Dax said, because to conceal the truth would mean putting Ivy into hiding forever and she wouldn’t go quietly. Her obvious objections would mean he’d have to restrain her or imprison her again, and she wouldn’t see that it was for her own safety.

As difficult as he found it, Dax had to tell the truth because if he didn’t Ivy would believe he was ashamed of her, and he wasn’t. So he’d take the difficult path so that they could all get used to the way things were going to be. Now that he had Ivy he had every intention of letting the world, meaning every other guy on the face of the earth, know that she was taken, she was his, and no other man was to get near her again.

‘That’s good,’ Mauri said. ‘Trystan will be back tonight and that will give us plenty of—‘

‘I married her.’ Just saying it out loud was freedom and the weight that floated up off of his shoulders made him sit straighter and even the crackle of anger in Mauri’s eyes didn’t make Dax shrink now.

The ire floated away and Mauri smiled, he actually smiled and then he laughed, leaving Dax very much at sea as to the cause of such elation.

‘Ah, you’re very clever,’ Mauri laughed. ‘Very funny too. I had forgotten how sharp your humour was.’

‘It’s not a joke,’ Dax said, slowly shaking his head and with each passing second Mauri’s amusement faded.

‘You can’t be serious,’ Mauri demanded. ‘You can’t be. You know her purpose was—‘

‘I asked her, she said yes, we did it,’ Dax said, glossing over a few details. ‘I’m sorry, Mauri, I know that you had a deal with Trystan but—‘

‘There is no but,’ Mauri said, pouncing out of his seat. ‘You went to Las Vegas, he found you in Las Vegas.’

‘Yes,’ Dax said, knowing that Mauri was referring to Benny.

‘Then you can get it annulled. I’ll delay Trystan and once the paperwork is—‘

‘I’m not getting it annulled,’ Dax said, standing up and realising for the first time just how much taller than Mauri he was. ‘I love her.’

The ringing in his ears grew louder with each passing second but Mauri said nothing, he just stared, then his attention dropped. ‘She doesn’t belong to you. You cannot have her. The family—‘

‘She’s part of the family now,’ Dax said. ‘Just not in the role you wanted her in. Tryst can go fuck himself. I’d slit her throat and mine before I’d see her go anywhere near his bed.’

‘Jealousy,’ Mauri said, angling his head and peering up at Dax. ‘Is that what this is about, boy? You think that he’s going to be playing with your toy?’

‘She’s not a toy. She’s my wife.’

‘And why is that? Why did she say yes to you? Do you think that she wants to be married to you? That she actually loves you?’

‘Yes.’

With a whisper of a laugh, Mauri softened and patted Dax’s arm then seated himself again, gesturing for Dax to do the same. ‘You have been played. You’re not the first man to fall for a great rack and a sob story. I’m surprised that she managed to manipulate you, very surprised at that. I knew that you didn’t embrace the cruelty that might be necessary to bend her will, but you’ve always been such a cold thing. Even as a child. You never cried,’ he said, drawing in a breath and settling back in his chair. ‘You never asked why or whimpered, you did the job, you were given a task and you completed it. I suppose your father conditioned you from a young age to do just that, he taught you how to fight and put you into that ring to make him money and you did.’