Font Size:  

“I know you’ve always had an expectation that you and I would eventually marry. I realize I’ve been wrong, very wrong, to have let things go on like this, to have—”

She cut him off. “Rule.”

He coughed into his hand. “Yes?”

Her perfect face was now scarily composed. “All right. So, then. You’re not here to propose marriage to me.”

“No, Lili. I’m not. I’m here to tell you that I’m already married.”

Lili gasped. Her face went dead-white.

He got ready to catch her as she collapsed.

Chapter Nine

But Lili remained upright on the sofa. She asked in a voice barely louder than a whisper, “Would you mind telling me her name, please?”

“Sydney. Sydney O’Shea.”

“Not Montedoran?”

“No. I met her in America. In Texas.”

Lili swallowed, her smooth white throat working convulsively. “Sydney O’Shea. From Texas.”

“Yes. Lili, I—”

She waved a hand at him. “No. Please. I … Fair enough, then. You’ve told me. And I hope you’ll be very happy together, you and this Sydney O’Shea.” Her huge blue eyes regarded him, stricken. Yet she remained so calm-seeming. She even forced a tight smile. “I hope you will have a lovely, perfect life.” She shot to her feet. “And now, if you don’t mind, I think I would like you to go.”

“Lili …” He rose. He wanted to reach out to her. But that would be wrong. He would only be adding insult to injury. What good could he do for her now? None. There was no way he could help her through this, nothing he could do to make things better.

He was the problem. And he really needed to leave, now, before she broke down in front of him and despised him even more for bearing witness to her misery.

“Go,” she said again. “Please just go.”

So he did go. With a quick dip of his head, he turned on his heel and he left her alone.

He called Sydney again the moment he reached his own rooms.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Not well. She sent me away as soon as I told her.”

“Is there someone with her? Someone she can talk to?”

“She has a cousin with her. But I don’t think that they’re close.”

“Who is she close to?”

“My God, Sydney. What does it matter? What business is it of mine or yours?”

“Men are so thickheaded. She needs someone to talk to, someone to comfort her, someone who understands what she’s going through.”

He needed a stiff drink. But then again, it was barely eleven in the morning. “You don’t know her, Sydney. How can you possibly know what she needs?”

“Rule. She’s a woman. I know what she needs. She needs a true friend with a shoulder she can cry on. She needs that friend now.”

“Sydney. I adore you,” he said in his coolest, most dangerous tones. “You know that. And I’m very sorry to have made such a balls-up of all this. But you don’t know Liliana and you have no idea what she needs. And I’ll thank you to stop imagining that you do.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like