Chapter 21
“No.”
Claire studied his face.
“Did you know about the messages?”
“No.”
Margaret stepped forward. “I sent the first warning.”
Adrian looked at her sharply. “Mother.”
“I am finished protecting your silence.”
Something moved across his expression—hurt, anger, and then resignation.
Claire held up the letter.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“You put this house in my name before we married.”
“Yes.”
“You asked me to sign documents without explaining what they were.”
“I believed the attorney would explain them.”
“You watched me leave my career because you said the timing was difficult, while this entire property was built around the work I had done before I met you.”
Adrian lowered his eyes.
“I was wrong.”
The simplicity of the answer unsettled her more than an excuse would have.
“You were wrong for three years.”
“Yes.”
“You let Sophia use my things, enter my home, and take priority over me while knowing you had built something that was supposed to be mine.”
His jaw tightened.
“I never thought of Lake Briar as an answer to what I was doing wrong.”
“That is because you never asked what you were doing wrong.”
He accepted the words without defense.
Margaret looked toward the stairs. “There is something Claire needs to know.”
Adrian turned to her.
“The condition in the agreement was my idea,” he said.
Claire looked at him.
“I asked Margaret to include it. I knew I was asking you to enter a family whose history was complicated. I thought if you ever discovered the archive and decided you wanted nothing to do with us, the property would give you a place to begin again.”
“Why would you think I would want a place to begin again?”
“Because I knew what my family could be.”
“And you chose to become part of it anyway.”
His face tightened.
“I thought I could be different.”
“You could have been.”
“I know.”
The words did not erase anything. But they left no argument to fight against.
Claire walked to the front windows. Beyond them, the lake lay motionless beneath the winter sky.
“I loved you,” she said.
Adrian’s voice was quiet. “I love you.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“I know.”
She turned back. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because love is not supposed to make one person smaller so the other can avoid difficult choices.”
His eyes glistened, though he did not look away.
“I made you smaller because I was afraid of losing the life I had built around me.”