His Until Midnight by Nikki Logan Page A

like. ‘Did you love him?’
    And could she hear how much he was hoping the answer was ‘no’?
    ‘Marriage means different things to different people.’
    Nice hedge. ‘So what does it mean to you?’
    She hesitated. ‘I don’t subscribe to the whole “lightning bolt across the crowded room” thing.’
    It was true. There’d been no lightning bolt when she walked into the bar that first day. But when she’d first pinned him with her intellect and locked those big eyes on him just minutes later, he’d had to curl his fingers under the edge of the bar to keep from lurching backwards at the slam of something that came off her. Whatever the hell it was.
    A big, blazing ball of slow burn.
    ‘You don’t aspire to that?’ he dug.
    ‘The great romantic passion? No.’ A little colour appeared on her jaw. ‘It hasn’t been my experience. I value compatibility, shared interests, common goals, mutual respect, trust. Those are things that make a marriage.’
    A hollow one, surely. Although how would he know? No personal experience to reference and a crap example in his parents’ marriage, which barely deserved the title—just a woman living in the purgatory of knowing her husband didn’t love her.
    He risked a slight probe. ‘Did Blake agree with that?’
    She brought her focus back to him. ‘I... Yes. We were quite sympathetic on a lot of things.’
    Well, there was one area in particular that old Blake was definitely un sympathetic with Audrey.
    Fidelity .
    ‘You never looked at someone else and wondered what it might be like?’ He had to know.
    Her eyes grew wary. ‘What what might be like?’
    ‘To be with them. Did you never feel the pull of attraction to someone other than Blake and wonder about a relationship that started with good, old-fashioned lust?’
    ‘You’re assuming that wanting and taking are connected. It comes back to that mutual trust and respect. I just wouldn’t do that to my partner. I couldn’t.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘I thought you, of all people, would understand that.’
    A cold stone formed in his gut. Of all people... ‘You’re talking about my father?’ They’d never discussed his father and so he knew whatever she knew had come from Blake. The irony of that...
    ‘Was he very bad?’
    He took a deep breath. But if sharing something with her, especially something this personal, was the only intimacy he was going to get from Audrey Devaney, he’d embrace it. ‘Very.’
    ‘How did you know what he was doing?’
    ‘Everyone knew.’
    ‘Including your mother?’
    ‘She pretended not to.’ For her son’s sake. And maybe for her own.
    ‘Did she not care?’
    His stomach tightened at the memory of the sobbing he wasn’t supposed to have heard when she thought he was asleep. His jaw tightened. ‘She cared.’
    ‘Why did she stay?’
    The sigh wracked his body. ‘My father was incapable of fidelity but he didn’t drink, he was never violent, he remembered birthdays and he had steady employment. He was, in all other ways, a pretty reasonable father.’
    If you didn’t count a little thing called integrity.
    Part of Oliver’s own attraction to Audrey had always been her values. This was not a woman who would ever have knowingly done wrong by the man she shared vows with. Just a shame Blake hadn’t returned the favour.
    ‘So she chose to stay.’ And that had been a green light in his father’s eyes. The ultimate hall pass.
    ‘Maybe she didn’t think she could do better?’
    ‘Than a man who was ruthlessly unfaithful—surely no one would think that?’ It hit him then how freely he was having this discussion. After so many years of bleeding the feelings out in increments.
    She shook her head. ‘I don’t know that you’ll ever be able to relate. Because of who you are. Successful and charming and handsome. It’s not that easy for everyone else.’
    His heart swelled that she thought him handsome enough to say it aloud. ‘You think I don’t have my