“I tookadvantageof the situation.”
“Mallorywasthe situation. If he hadn’t been in debt, you’d have had to wait to place a fair offer like the rest of us had to.”
Myriad complex emotions played across his features before he scrunched his eyes closed briefly and nodded. “In business, you have to strike while the iron is hot, so I guess in that respect I did take advantage of Mallory’s predicament—but he was the fool that had gotten himself in that predicament in the first place. And if he hadn’t sold itto me, he’d have sold it to someone else just as fast and you’d still be exactly where you’re at.”
“But if you hadn’t been the one to buy them, I wouldn’t have been taken advantage of by you, too.” It took every bit of pride Vee possessed to say that without showing him how much that hurt.
He dropped his voice to a whispered growl in case there were any eavesdroppers. “I kissed you because I wanted to, not because I wanted to take advantage, damn it!”
“Because you wanted the set?” Before he answered with another lie, she raised her gloved palm. “Save your breath for someone less naive. I have your full measure now, Galahad Sinclair. I suspect I always did, until you used your calculated charm to convince me otherwise and distracted me with your practiced showmanship.”
“There was no showmanship when…” She stayed him with her palm again, determined not to give him an opportunity to wound her further in case the tears burning behind her eyes fell before she could escape him.
“Furthermore, kindly note that until you do the decent thing and relinquish the building next door to its rightful owners, there is nothing you can do or say that will convince me otherwise.”
“This is my dream you’re asking me to compromise, Venus. I’ve waited years to open my club. Worked my fingers to the bone getting the money together, put in ridiculous, relentless hours both day and night in the docks scrimping and saving to ensure I had enough. Then spent the last twelve months hunting for the perfect place to put it. It’s everything to me, and those buildings are perfect. To expect me to sell one of them to you just because some old lady welched on a promise she made to the orphanage isn’t fair. If she’d really wanted you to have it, she’d have written it in her will. Be angry at her, not me.”
“Mrs. Leyton-Brown didn’t welch, Lord Mallory did.”
“What?” His head snapped back as if it had been slapped.
“She gave him the instruction to do it a month before she died when she was so sick she could no longer leave her bed, and he faithfullypromised to honor her dying wish to donate that building to us. Promised it in front of the Reverend Smythe and his wife, then went and sold it within hours of her dying breath to you instead! Knowing full well he was ignoring her express wishes.”
He swallowed. “I did not know that.” And because he was the consummate actor, he even managed to say that as if it were the gospel truth. “If I had, I probably wouldn’t have bought it.”
Probably!
That single word said it all.
She wanted to laugh in both of his two faces at that outright lie, except this was all too tragic and painful to be funny. “But now you do know it, Galahad.” She glared in challenge, willing him to be the man she had believed he was. Still hoped he was, much to her complete disgust. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do, short of shoot myself in the foot?” He waved his arms as he paced as if she was the one being unreasonable. “I bought it in good faith. I’m invested, Venus. I’ve spent almost every cent I had saved. I’ve engaged tradesmen to start work and I had to pay them half up front weeks ago and…”
“All things you should have had the decency to tell me weeks ago, too.”
He winced as if he realized he was digging himself a bigger hole. “I had no idea about her last wishes, I swear it. You have to believe that.”
She mimicked the oh-so-charming accent he employed whenever he wanted to get his own way. “Why, I don’t believe a singledrawledsyllable that comes out of yourlyin’mouth, Galahad Sinclair.”
He had the nerve to growl. “I’m trying to make things right between us, Venus!”
“If you truly want to make things right, then you would do the decent thing and honor her last request.”
“Now, hang on a goddamn minute…”
“I take it that is a firm no, Galahad, despite the fact that it should very much be a yes. Because of course it is a no, when a man like you—aman who by his own admission isn’t foolish enoughnotto seize any opportunity that presents itself—has never possessed a single shred of honor.”
“Of course it’s a firm no!” His temper snapped. Likely because he had finally run out of charming lies to justify his duplicity. “But not because I have no honor. It’s because I damn well do, and you know it!”
“What? The honor-among-thieves sort of honor? The so-long-as-you’re-all-right sort of honor?”
“It was my honor that brought me to this stupid country in the first place!”
“Do not dare try to claim you came to England to save Giles when you came here expressly to get revenge on your lying, duplicitous father. The apple certainly didn’t fall far from that tree, did it?”
He fought for calm, then tried again. “I am not entirely in the wrong here.” Although his pained expression said otherwise. “Yes—with hindsight I shouldn’t have kept the purchase from you, and there’s no denying I damn well should have mentioned it before I kissed you, but that snake Mallory is the villain of the piece here, not me. And while I don’t disagree thatheshould have honored his aunt’s dying wishes, he didn’t, and expecting me to pay for that retroactively is unfair.”
“From where I am standing, Mallory isn’t the only snake, and what is unfair is me being lied to and shamelessly used so that you got to win.”
