Secrets in the Marriage Bed by Nalini Singh Read Free Book Online Page A

shot.” The stubborn set of his jaw was as familiar to her as her own face, and welcome beyond measure. “You have dirt in your hair.” He picked at the strands by her temple.
    “I need to shower,” she whispered, her voice husky.
    For a moment, she thought he heard what she was trying to say, heard the woman in her attempting to come out of hiding, but then he dropped his hand and the moment was gone. “I’ll let you clean up and meet you in the kitchen.”
    She tried not to let her disappointment show. “Okay.”

    They were just sitting down to dinner at the kitchen table when the phone rang. Caleb picked up the extension on the wall to answer it as she went to grab a forgotten bottle of salad dressing.
    “Yes, I’m listening.”
    Her head jerked up at the tone of his voice. Gone was all the humor, sensuality, laughter. Tightly controlled, he sounded almost emotionless and there were only a few people who made him sound that way. “Your family? Lara?” she mouthed.
    He gave a sharp nod. “How much?”
    Vicki narrowed her eyes, in no doubt as to why Lara had called. It was the same reason why any of his family ever called. She was acquainted with all three members—Caleb had never hidden his roots. Before they’d married, he’d taken her to the run-down neighborhood where he’d grown up and introduced her to his family and friends.
    She knew that Max was a sculptor and Caleb’s mother, Carmen, a poet. Unfortunately, neither had achieved professional success. To Victoria, Max and Carmen had always seemed sanctimonious in their assertions that they were sacrificing for their art. What they’d sacrificed was their children’s welfare. Caleb rarely talked about his growing-up years, but from what he had let slip, she’d guessed that he’d sometimes gone hungry.
    Unlike Caleb, his sister, Lara, hadn’t left the family fold. A struggling singer with two kids by two different men, she’d never wavered from her belief that her parents’ way—poverty and suffering as the only path to creative genius—was the right way.
    “What did she want?” Vicki asked when Caleb hung up the phone and came to stand beside her.
    He sighed, staring blindly into space. “What she always wants. Money. Since I sold out to the capitalist regime, the least I can do is help her out now and then.” His tone was flat, as if the call had drained all emotion from him.
    Vicki recognized the familiar refrain. She’d heard it enough times from Lara’s own mouth. Previously, Vicki had remained silent, reasoning that she had no business interfering with Caleb and his family. Now, seeing the pain revealed by her husband’s bowed head, she decided it was very much her business.
    Turning slightly, she pushed at his chest until he looked at her. “Why do you let them treat you this way?” Instinct told her there was something fundamental she didn’t know. The political rhetoric the Callaghans spewed simply couldn’t explain the antipathy Vicki sometimes felt emanating from them toward Caleb. What wasn’t he telling her?
    She knew she didn’t yet have the right to push for that information. They’d barely started talking about repairing the fissures in their marriage. Until those wounds had healed, she had to tread softly. But it didn’t mean she had to remain silent.
    He shrugged. “They’re my family.”
    “No,” she said. “They abandoned you when you dared to be different.” She knew he’d left home at sixteen and scraped by on his own, working multiple jobs while going to school. His parents had kicked him out when he’d dared argue with them about what he wanted from life. “They’ve never been there for you.”
    A bleak look appeared in his eyes. “They’re all I’ve got.”
    She shook her head, furious at them for always causing him such pain. “ We’re your family, Caleb. Me and our baby.”
    “But you might be divorcing me.” It wasn’t a challenge but a reminder of their precarious situation. Before