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Stefan had buried his heart so deep and so long ago that he didn’t even have one anymore, she sensed. Stepping away from him, she shook herself free of his magnetic pull. Met his gaze head-on. “I never want to hear anything but the truth from you, Stefan.”
“Deal,” he said with an indulgent smile that was more like a threat than a reassuring promise. “Now it’s time to put your cards on the table, bella. Without fear.”
She knew exactly where she stood with him; she would always know.
His brand of friendship—eviscerating and without an ounce of pretension—was what she needed to remake herself, to redefine herself. Stefan was the perfect path for her to walk on toward becoming her own woman again.
“As gratifying as it is to learn I could have millions if I just made myself your charity case, I didn’t come here for money. I want nothing from you for free.”
“What do you want, then?”
Her chest felt so tight that she had to break his gaze. Had to force herself to speak past the sound of Jackson’s and Ashley’s combined laughter resonating through her.
Jackson’s cheating on her, using her for her connections, reducing her entire identity to the value she provided him in his blasted business, scraped her raw. But that he could be so casually cruel about her feelings, that he would betray every aspect of their lives together, that he would laugh at her fears and insecurities behind her back...it festered inside her like a putrefied wound.
It tainted every aspect of her so much that she was beginning to despise herself.
And she wouldn’t be able to move forward, wouldn’t be able to look herself in the eye unless she showed him that he couldn’t do this to her without realizing the consequences. Unless she proved to him and herself that she was more than what he had called her.
“I want to teach Jackson a lesson he will never forget.”
Cold—blanching and eviscerating—dawned in Stefan’s gaze and he stepped away as if she was the very plague. His jaw clenched so tight that it was a wonder he spoke through it. “I will not play petty games so that you can make him jealous and win him back. If that’s why you came, get out. Now. Before I physically restrain you from going back to that leech.”
“I don’t want to make him jealous. I want to remove Jackson from every part of my life. I don’t want even his shadow to touch me anymore.”
“That is as simple as walking away, Clio.”
“Not without making him realize what he’s done to me.”
Disbelief shone in his eyes. “Earlier, you wouldn’t believe a word I said. How do I know you won’t go running back to him the minute he starts whispering words of love again?”
“Earlier, I was a fool who’d have done anything for the man I loved. Now...I feel nothing but disgust and pity for that woman. My skin crawls when I think that I stayed all these years... Does that satisfy you? Or do you want me to prostrate myself before you’re ready to believe me?”
His gaze encompassed her from top to toe as though he was enjoying the idea of her prostrating herself. By sheer will, she stood still under that assessing gaze.
“You’re angry and emotional right now. Tomorrow, you’ll forgive him and crawl back to him—”
“Listen to my proposal first. Then make your decision.”
She was so tired of men playing their games with her, controlling her, defining her, owning her joys and her sorrows.
First her father and then Jackson...
So tired of losing herself, again and again. The irony of appealing to another man for help, of letting him see her darkest fears, a man who was a hundred times more powerful and ruthless than Jackson or her father, wasn’t lost on her.
But Jackson had been wrong. She still had one avenue left and she was going to throw herself into it.
“Do you want to expose Jackson’s reality to the world?”
Something shifted in his expression, a watchful uncoiling of his rigid stance. He was hooked. For the first time in months, Clio felt a surge of positivity fill her.
“Throwing a million dollars at you is easy. What you’re suggesting is far more elaborate and requires a great deal of my actual involvement.”
“But you’ll do it,” she said, forcing confidence into her tone.
Heat flared in his gaze at the vehemence of her statement. She braced herself, expecting him to cut her down.
“Why?”
“Because I saw it in your face tonight just as you saw whatever you did in mine.
