Rhodes was frowning. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said quietly.
I steeled myself against him. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m fine.”
The real problem wasn’t Rhodes’s intentions. The real problem was me—what I’d let myself feel, and how quickly I’d started being attached to him. He could tell me all day long that I wasn’t just a line item in a contract, and it wouldn’t change the fact that I had no business believing him. My mother showing up here proved that point. Unless and until I pulled off my performance flawlessly, I was nothing but a liability.
No matter how much money I made from the contract, I could never afford the luxury of assuming he cared for me.
I’d gotten confused for a minute. It happened.
“I’m not mad. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Miranda sooner.” I straightened my shoulders and gave him the most neutral smile in my repertoire. “We should probably get back. The board will be looking for you.”
I walked back up the garden path without waiting for him, and I didn’t let myself think about the sound of his footsteps behind me, steady and close, as he followed me all the way to the door.
TEAR
RHODES
I never wantedto sit in that garden again. Memories of our conversation washed over me. Rory’s face, which had become dear to me, was twisted. She was angry, and I understood.
I was angry, too.
Not at her—at myself. I should have asked her about making her mother an offer. It had been wrong of me to hide it. When Tammy Harris had shown up at the North Gate, hollering, it was my karma.
So now what was I going to do?
On the surface, everything was still intact. Rory and I would be married the day after next. The board had voiced its support for me. Tammy Harris had been handled for the moment. Miranda was having Rory investigated, but nothing had come of that. Yet.
But I was all too aware that below the surface, things were cracking. Rory had never said she was going to back out of the deal. But she had absolutely retreated from me. She could barely look at me when we’d left the garden. We were a couple in the contract’s name only right now, and I knew it.
Was it just last night that we’d held each other? That I’d had her body so close to mine? I’d been dreaming of our weddingnight, of taking her, of consummating our marriage and making it real.
That was what I’d wanted. And now? Everything was ruined.
We would walk down the aisle. We would say our vows. Genevieve the wedding planner had a whole litany of wedding things we had to do, to say.
I would satisfy my father’s trust requirements. I would get the company, and I would get custody of Luke.
But I feared I’d already lost the thing I wanted most.
“Rhodes.” Miranda’s icy voice cut through my thoughts. She came into my office uninvited and shut the door behind her.
“I’m in the middle of something.”
She didn’t appear to care as she sat down across from me. “We have a situation.”
After Tammy Harris exploded on the scene earlier, I couldn’t imagine what this was about. “What’s going on?”
“Gigi’s here. She’s making a scene. She was yelling at the nanny.”
“Fuck.” I jumped to my feet. “Did you invite her? Haruki said you’d been talking to her.”
Miranda held up her hands. “I didn’t invite her—she invited herself. She heard about the wedding. Somehow she found out Luke was the ring bearer, and she is up in arms about the fact that she didn’t get an invitation.”
Miranda shrugged, smirking a little. “She’s on the warpath. You’re next, Rhodes.”
“I bet you’re loving this,” I snorted.
“You know, you’ve never once given me the benefit of the doubt.” She frowned. “So no, I am not rooting for you. You have never once extended me any courtesy or compassion. So yes, I am loving it.
