“Luciano, you’ve known me for years, you know I wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t what, Raina? Lie to me? You have, several times over the years, in fact. Wouldn’t try to convince me to hop into your bed? You’ve also done that over the years. So why should I believe you didn’t see this as an opportunity to trick me into whatever the fuck this has been?”
“I didn’t! I swear,” she sobs, the look on her face one of absolute devastation.
But I’ve seen her acting skills firsthand while in Spain, and I don’t know what to believe.
“I need time to think.” My chest rises as intensely as my anger has, and I know I need to walk away before I say something I regret later. I need clarity, and I’m sure as hell not going to find that on this rooftop when my heart is bleeding in the hands of the woman in front of me, while her husband-potentially-not-husband watches from a distance.
Pressing the call button again, the doors to the elevator open wide and I step inside, immediately hitting the button to close them.
Raina doesn’t try to stop me.
With a clenched jaw, I stare at her until she’s out of my view, and I let my eyes fall shut as the elevator descends.
Unfortunately for me, she’s still holding my heart in her hands back on that rooftop, even if it is completely broken.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“How dare you,” I scream once the elevator doors shut, closing me off from Luciano. Spinning on my heels, I stalk back toward Javier, swiping furiously at my tears. I can barely see as I rush at him, hand up, ready to strike when I get within arm’s reach.
A piercing crack reverberates through the air as my open palm connects with his cheek. “How could you?” My voice cracks through a shriek, and I raise my hand again.
Javier springs to his feet and grabs my wrist right before it connects with his reddened skin again, where my handprint’s already prominent.
“What exactly did I do aside from tell your fake fiancé the truth?” He seethes, glaring at me while he holds my wrist in place.
“What truth? You acted like I knew the marriagewasn’treal after you swore it was,” I spit, my body trembling. “Youbeggedme to help you and promised me a divorce.”
He drops my wrist and adjusts the collar of his shirt while he retakes his seat. Propping his leg over his opposite knee, he settles in again as if he doesn’t have a care in the world and we’re talking about something as mundane as the weather. “I wouldn’tcall it begging, but you may choose to believe what you’d like. As far as the marriage goes, you knew from the beginning it wasn’t real. To say otherwise is simply a lie on your part.”
“You showed me the marriage certificate. You gave it to me.”
“Yes, but you didn’t even bother to look at it, did you?” Pulling his gaze from mine, he pours himself another glass of wine and takes a long sip after swirling it.
I’m caught so off guard by the casualness of his actions, it takes me a moment to realize what he said. “Of course, I looked at it!”
“Closely? Close enough to notice that the French seal wasn’t on the paperwork? The document was a counterfeit, my dear American girl.”
“I… How?” An overwhelming feeling of suffocation settles deep in my chest. But my tears begin to dry as the shock from Luciano leaving wears off.
Javier openly rolls his eyes at me. “It really wasn’t that difficult. Felipe is quite good at forging documents.”
“This is so fucked.” I lift my chin in an effort to exude confidence I’m not even close to feeling.
He laughs methodically, his eyes darkening as they narrow at me. “Either you knew the document was a fake from that first evening and used the information to your advantage to get close to your lawyer friend, or I underestimated your intelligence.”
His words are sobering, like cold water thrown in my face. They’re exactly what I need to stop myself from feeling the pain of Luciano walking out and push another emotion forward to fuel me into ridding my life of the horrible man in front of me once and for all.
Anger.
My heart pulsates with a fury so deep, it’s practically tangible. With an eerily calm tone, I step forward into his space.“Bold of you to assume either. Why me, Javier? What did I do to deserve you ruining the only thing I care about?”
He tosses back the last bit of wine in his glass and stands, towering over me in an attempt to make me feel small.
It’s not working.
“When I woke up in that hotel room the next morning, you were already gone. The only traces of you that remained were your lipstick imprint on a champagne glass and a piece of silk from a makeshift hair ribbon you concocted at some point during the evening. You left me naked and alone, with no way to reach you, and not even a goodbye. I thought we shared something.”
