Chapter 84 REFUTING ALLEGATIONS
GALLAHAN’S POV
I couldn’t believe it.
Willa was jealous. JEALOUS!
But then again, this wasn’t the first instance she showed me how jealous she could get, given how she almost lost her composure when she saw Zuleika put on my ancestral sash for me.
Tonight, though, I nearly erupted, ready to return the anger she was dishing out to me so unfairly.
I was so damn close to losing my temper; I was basically just a step a way from fighting her—her vitriol against mine—until she began spouting nonsense about me being a philandering asshole, as if I hadn’t been losing my mind as I tried to look for her in the last six years.
Instantly, the burning and venomous urge to argue and spat out angry words fizzled out. But it didn’t mean I was just going to let her continue to stew with all her wrong assumptions until they could fester and completely poison her thoughts and feelings for me.
Daringly, I approached her and tossed the other half of her broken pencil aside. Then I plopped down next to her on the couch and began to counter and challenge everything she had accused me of.
“Zee is a dear friend, Willa. My father and her parents are best of friends, and Zee and I are the same. We’ve known each other for years. We’re basically family. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
I peered at her face, but she remained stubbornly focused on the twins’ portrait she was making. Her pencil moved against the paper with deliberate intent and precision, as if she just knew every little detail about our children and how to put them into drawing.
I ran my tongue on my lower lips and added, “Zee is family. That’s why she could touch my ancestral sash. That’s it. Okay? She’s not my chosen mate.”
Willa still remained mum as she finished off Gillian’s left eyebrow and proceeded to start on her right.
“You are my only mate, Willa.”
Willa went rigid on her spot for a second, her pencil halting mid-stroke. She blinked and swallowed hard, then went straight back to drawing again, quietly asking, “And Elodie?”
“Is a cunning and insane woman,” I said almost immediately. Then, as smoothly as I could, I slung an arm on the couch’s backrest behind her head, adding, “It was a lapse in judgment on my part that I didn’t bother knowing the enemy before we met.”
This piqued her interest, and it earned me her full attention.
She turned to look at me, her eyes vibrant and beautiful. Seeing them so close again after being Willa-deprived for weeks nearly used up all of my self-restraint in reigning in the urge to kiss her senseless right then and there.
She canted her head a little to the right, then she probed softly, “What do you mean?”
“She knew a lot of things about me,” I explained with an air of defeat, hoping a little bit of theatrics could get her to loosen up. “She was prepared as hell when we met. She knew I didn’t want the betrothal arrangement. She also knew I was mated to you, which was very odd. And knowing these things, she used it as a leverage against me.”
I chuckled, still a bit bitterly amused at how I was one-upped by a woman. Then I went on, saying, “She demanded quite a lot in exchange for her agreement to what I wanted: to break off the betrothal arrangement. And that’s how I got so swamped. Like hell… She is such a mad woman behind the innocent facade she wears.”
Slowly, a ghost of a smile graced Willa’s face, and I nearly keeled over at the breathtaking sight of it.
My mouth ran dry, and for a moment, I forgot what the hell I was talking about.
“You’re just mad she came prepared and outsmarted you.”
I paused, staring searchingly at her face as I wondered if I was just imagining the hint of a teasing lilt in her voice.
“So,” she went on smoothly, so calmly, instantly making me dismiss the notion. “What did she want from you? What did she make you do?”
A groan nearly broke out of me, the question reminding me of the slavery I was subjected to for more than two weeks.
“She used me, my image, my influence, and my wealth to expand her winery,” I answered, letting a petulant whiny tone slip a little. “She worked me like a dog, Willa. I attended meetings and gatherings left and right all around the continent. So that meant a lot of travelling together by road and a whole lot of socializing with annoying people. I was basically made into her business partner against my will.”
“It wasn’t against your will if you agreed and consented to it,” she countered easily.
I huffed with a roll of my eyes. “It was a dubious consent at best.”
Willa hummed. There was no longer any lingering hint of her anger, frustration and coldness in the lines of her face and the contours of her body. It seemed like my explanation had completely coaxed her back to calmness, even to the point that her body went lax next to me, her head resting on my arm on the backrest.
Of course, I pretended as if my insides didn’t burn with the need to pull her close until there was no longer a sliver of space left between us.
But I couldn’t do much about the way my eyes gravitated towards her lips when she whispered, “Was the deal unfair for you?”
“No,” I answered, imitating her hushed volume. “It was worth it, and everything turned out well.”
A sense of triumph, mixed with great relief, awashed me as I thought of how the entire thing had concluded. The arrangement was called off with neither of the parties ending up carrying a heavy brunt of consequences.
If it just had been me forcing it to be broken off, Elodie would’ve been disgraced. While I was far from fond of her, it was not something I wished for her to go through. As it was, being a child of a mistress was already making her standing within her family difficult.
“And what about your father and hers? Did they take it well?”
I shrugged. “As well as they could manage without actually causing a scene.”
Willa chuckled softly.
“Dad was furious at me, thinking I had forced Elodie to agree to a mutual rejection of the arrangement. Her father, on the other hand, was miffed about the entire ordeal. But both of them were too prideful to even think of trying to persuade Elodie and I to reconsider our decision.”
“So all is well on your end?”
I wasn’t quite sure why she was speaking so carefully in such a hushed voice. Maybe she could feel the fragility of the air between us just as I did.
“All is well,” I answered, daring to reach out and touch her cheek. “How about between us? Are we okay?”
At this, Willa became subdued, but she allowed my hand to cup her cheek.
“I’m sorry, Han. For my outburst, for… For my unbecoming display earlier. You were right. I was being unfair. I’m sorry.”
I flashed her a reassuring smile, while my thumb caressed the smooth skin of her cheek. “Apology accepted.”
“But we’re far from okay, still.”
“What? But why?”
She sighed with her eyes shut. Then a pained look marred her features, twisting my gut in an uncomfortable way. And when she opened her striking green eyes once more, there were tears pooling in them.
“I wasn't lying when I told you the twins are fighting and are no longer on speaking terms to each other.”
“And it’s really my fault? Was it because of my prolonged absence?”
“Yeah. But it was kind of my fault too.” A shaky breath interrupted her. Then a barely there smile curled at her lips. “Because I didn’t know how to deescalate the situation without making it seem like I was siding with one of them. It was just… It was the biggest fight they’ve ever had.”
But something deep down in my core told me that there was something else she wasn’t saying yet.
“Tell me everything,” I urged gently.
“It was a screaming match, Han. They even said they hate each other.”
My entire world seemed to falter at the revelation, and my own mind grappled with the image of my two sweet children spewing angry words at each other.
“Why… Why would they say that?”
“They were fighting about you, okay? And at some point, Calisto said he wants you and…” Willa paused, seemingly finding it difficult to say her next words. A tear then fell and rolled seamlessly down her face as she whispered, “And that I wasn’t enough.”