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Scant moments later, Marco and Emily were alone, he tight-lipped with cold fury, she weeping in despair.
She sat in the middle of one of the sofas, a pillow she’d fluffed to within an inch of its life not an hour ago clutched to her breasts like a life preserver.
Marco was pacing the same path he’d paced earlier tonight as a nervous suitor but now his footsteps were heavy, his hands were fisted in his trouser pockets, and the look on his face said that nothing in the world would ever be the same again.
“I tried to tell you,” she said in a trembling voice. “I tried and tried but you wouldn’t listen.”
“You told me nothing,” Marco snarled. “Not one damned thing!”
“I did. I said you had the wrong idea about me, that I—that I wasn’t the small- town girl you’d decided I was.”
“I decided? I decided nothing except to believe your sad story.”
“I didn’t tell you a sad story. You’re the one who—”
“Did you tell me you worked as a piano player in a bar?”
“Yes. And it was the truth.”
“Did you tell me that you lived in that—that abominable slum?”
“I did live there. And it wasn’t an abominable sl—”
“Perhaps it was I who I decided your father had spent his life being shuffled from army base to army base.”
“You’re distorting everything! I never said—”
“Or perhaps it was my decision to think of your brothers as—as men who went to work each morning and clocked in to their jobs!”
“I never said any such thing.”
“You never said they were the Wildes of Wilde’s Crossing, either.”
Emily narrowed her eyes. “I see. So being the Wildes of Wilde’s Crossing makes them better than if they worked with their hands?”
“I did not mean—”
“Because if that’s your problem—”
“My problem,” he said coldly, “is that I was allowed to think that your family could not help you lead a more comfortable life and yet one of your brothers is an investor with the power of an emperor, another is an attorney who is the first choice of corporate powerhouses everywhere and the third is a man who manages a ranch the size of a small nation and breeds horses that sell for more money than most people will earn in their lifetimes!”
Emily rose from the sofa, still clutching the pillow.
“I tried to tell you the truth. Several times. And, just for your information, I didn’t want their help.”
“That is not the point!”
“Then what is? Are you saying that my brothers are too successful? That would be a strange complaint from a man who owns an international conglomerate that makes millions upon millions of dollars each year.”
Color suffused his face. She knew that wasn’t what he’d meant, but anger was creeping in to replace despair and she welcomed it.
“I am not saying that!”
“No?”
“No. I am saying that letting me believe the Madisons were an average American family was a falsehood. Hell, letting me believe they even existed was a lie!”
“What if it was? It didn’t harm anyone.”
