Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Just like you.” She grabbed the glass and took a drink, her eyes off me.
“I care more about power than he does. But I also care about you more than he does.”
Her face turned back to mine.
“You know I’d do anything for you.”
“Except abandon this…” Her eyes searched my face, silently pleading with me to drop this agenda and go back to France.
But I couldn’t. “No.”
“So, you wouldn’t do anything for me. Just empty words.”
“My professional life is separate from our personal relationship—”
“Just because you’re rich doesn’t make you a professional. You’re a drug dealer who earns his living from the blood and suffering of others.”
I had a powerful defense against her claims, but now wasn’t the time. “Laura, he doesn’t deserve your loyalty. He would sacrifice you in a heartbeat if it moved his pawn across the board. I’m telling you everything you already know.”
Her arms crossed over her chest, and she looked down, like she couldn’t think when my eyes were on her.
I already knew how this would end. Saw it written all over her face. “You’re making a mistake.”
Her eyes stayed down. “I-I can’t be with someone trying to destroy my family.”
“You haven’t spoken to him in seven years for a reason—”
“It’s not just him, Bartholomew. It’s my sister. It’s Victor. It’s my other family members.”
The second she said that asshole’s name, I wanted to smash the bottle on the table, but I suppressed the beast that reared its ugly head.
“If you do this…they’ll lose everything. I can’t live with that. I can’t sleep with the man who’s intent on destroying my family’s power and wealth. My father and I have never seen eye to eye, but this is a different level of betrayal.”
“It’s not a betrayal because you have nothing to do with it.”
“But I’m fucking the man who wants to destroy my family’s legacy.”
“You ran to Paris because you wanted nothing to do with this life. Now you’re defending it? Sounds a bit hypocritical.”
The sadness in her eyes was slowly replaced by something else. “If you can’t understand the situation you’ve put me in, then you aren’t the man I thought you were. You’re narrow-minded and self-absorbed.”
She was right on the money.
She looked away again. “This is over.” She couldn’t look at me and say it. Couldn’t watch her sword pierce my flesh.
I’d known it was over the second this conversation started. I’d seen the end at the beginning, but it still hadn’t prepared me for the bite of her words. My fingertips felt numb. My body felt empty, all my emotions defeated in a cruel battle. For a relationship that meant nothing, her goodbye hurt like the bullet Benton gave me. “I understand.”
She didn’t look at me, like she might cry if she did.
“Do what you have to do, sweetheart.”
She started to breathe harder, her chest heaving but her eyes dry.
“Just know that I actually give a damn about you—and he never has.”
22
LAURA
Bartholomew’s driver took me to my father’s estate, and I spent the entire drive stifling my silent tears. Some of them escaped my eyes and made rivers down my cheeks. They hit the corners of my lips and made it to my tongue—tasting like salt pellets.
I’d known it was going to end, but when I didn’t know when or how, it was easy to forget the impending doom. When I’d woken up that morning with him beside me, I kissed his shoulder to coax him awake, wanting him the second I saw his naked body beside me. But those kisses would be our last.
If I’d known they’d be our last…I wouldn’t have left the bed.
The car stopped outside the gate, and I stayed in the back seat as I cleaned up my tears with a tissue. My eyes would be red and my cheeks blotchy, but there was nothing I could do to hide that.
The driver grabbed my bags from the trunk then left me on the sidewalk.
Then he left.
It was really over now.
The guys let me in the gate, pulling my suitcase behind me, walking right into the snake’s den. I felt like shit for betraying Bartholomew, but I felt even worse harboring this secret from my own flesh and blood.
Now I wished I’d never met Bartholomew. I wouldn’t be in this position. I would be in Paris, thriving in ignorant bliss.
I entered the house, and the butler immediately took my suitcase. “Will you be staying with us, Miss Laura?”
“I hope so.” I didn’t have anywhere else to go and not a lot of money to spend. “I need to speak to my father.”
“He’s not in residence right now.”
“Then I guess I’ll wait.”
A couple hours later, he returned. I knew he was home because he was yelling the second he walked through the front door. “To forget everything I’ve done for him, the years of good business, even the years of bad business… A butter knife will be in his eye before this is over.”