Her Galahad by Melissa James Read Free Book Online

knew he had the fight of his life on his hands, right here and now, to convince her he was right. "They destroyed our lives and got away with it. The only way to get our lives back is to take control."
    She bit her lip. "You want your name back."
    "I want my life back." He got to his feet and paced the room, feeling like a caged tiger. "I want my name cleared. I want my builder's license, and a driver's license with my real name on it. I want a home loan, a credit card, to buy and register a dog, put money in the bank—to live my life in peace without worrying about the deranged lunatic obsessed with my wife." Hearing her gasp, he turned to her with a wry smile. "You were right. We're still married. I never divorced you."
    "Why not?" she whispered.
    He saw the shaking she tried so hard to hide, and oh, God, it hurt. He wanted to hold her, give her the comfort he sensed she desperately needed; but a deep instinct told him she wasn't ready for touch. He wasn't sure he was, either, if his full-on hard reaction to her tending his cuts earlier was anything to go by. He'd better back off fast, unless of course he wanted to live in a permanent state of unfulfilled arousal, since it sure didn't look like Tess was going to let him touch her in a hurry.
    So he answered in as matter-of-fact a tone as he could manage. "I never got the chance. I was in lockup, then legally dead. Bit hard to do much when you're dead, you know."
    She looked at her feet, scuffing her toe against a knot in the floorboard. "They must have tried to make you divorce me."
    "Not since my conviction. When I got out, all they wanted was for me to crawl in a hole and forget we were ever together."
    "I see." She scuffed harder, kicking a chip out of the wood he'd never polished. "So you gave in. You went away, and left me with them."
    He knew he deserved the accusation in her voice—but he wasn't ready to tell her the whole truth. "You married Beller only five weeks after I was arrested. I despised you for that. I was angry, bitter, and you betrayed me in the worst possible way. I'll never forgive you for what you did to the baby." He dropped to his haunches before her, a torrent of passionate words bursting from his heart. "But I never thought he'd hurt you, Tess. I thought it was only me he wanted to destroy. I knew he couldn't stand the idea of me being your lover."
    But Tessa wasn't listening; she'd blanked out before he'd even finished his words. She swayed in her chair, her face pale, her eyes glazed. "The—the baby?"
    The choking force of useless, bitter rage hit him again in its unrelenting tide, forcing him to remember his most compelling reason to despise this woman. "Yeah. My daughter," he grated. "I know what you did to her—what you did to me." He extracted a well-folded piece of paper from his wallet, and slammed it on the table. "That's your signature," he grated. "Don't deny it!"
    "My—my what?" Tessa's bewildered gaze followed his stabbing finger down to the paper. As if in a daze she unfolded it, and scanned its contents.
    The signed permission to give up a child for adoption.
    The last vestiges of color drained from her face. She seemed deathlike, a mask, her eyes dull and blank, fixed on the scrawl of ink at the paper's base. She swayed in the chair again; then her body gave a hard jerk forward. "Yes." A strained, harsh whisper. "It's my signature."

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    Chapter 4
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    " Y es," she admitted in the lengthening silence, her voice rough, scratchy. "It's my signature." Her body spasmed again.
    Jirrah snarled, "So you admit it. You gave our daughter to strangers like she didn't matter. Like I never mattered enough to you even to keep my child, or even name me as her father! Explain that form of bloody grief to me if you can, Mrs. Beller!"
    But her reaction floored him.
    Her knuckles gleamed white as she gripped the sides of the table; her eyes burned like zealot's gold in a wraithlike face. "I—I … oh, God, my baby, my baby … my Emily's