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She felt like she was about to pass out. She pressed a hand to the wall, steadying herself, conscious of the way Max responded immediately, moving deeper into her room, his hands moving to steady her. She shook her head ferociously. “No. I’m fine.” She lowered her voice, swallowing. “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine.
“So you offered him money. How much?”
Max had the good grace to look ashamed.
“How much did it take to make him walk away?”
“Does it matter?”
“I think I have a right to know my commercial value, sure.”
No reply.
“Tell me what my ex-husband paid my fiancé to get out of my life?”
“I am not your ex-husband,” he said quietly.
She glared at him. “How much?”
He expelled a sigh. “Enough. Enough that he decided to cut his losses – that it was more economically viable for him to take the money and leave you than it was to marry you and wonder if he’d ever have any money of his own.”
“How.” Her gaze didn’t waver. “M
uch?”
He compressed his lips, his eyes locked to hers, as though they were in a silent, unspoken battle of determination.
Finally, he looked away. “A million American dollars.”
Alessia stumbled backwards a little, reaching for the support behind her. “A million dollars?” She shook her head in disbelief. “You honestly gave the man I was meant to marry a million dollars to see if he would leave me?”
“And he did,” Max said simply. “He could have told me to get stuffed – what I would have expected from a man who loved his fiancé. He didn’t deserve you.”
Alessia lifted her eyes to him and felt an all-consuming sense of grief. It was drowning her, absorbing her from every side. “No,” she agreed on a whisper. “Probably not.”
Max was quiet. Watchful. Waiting.
She made a groaning noise. “You’re still lying to me. At every opportunity you have lied and obfuscated, doing whatever you could to keep me from seeing things clearly. You told me this marriage would be different. You told me I could trust you – and God help me, I did – but look at what you’ve done! Look at how you’ve lied!”
He didn’t deny it and she was glad for that.
“How much of this is just ego, Max? You liked how much I adored you in our first marriage. When you thought I’d cheated, your ego was hurt. But I was still single, still just your ex-wife. Until I got engaged and then I was no longer yours – until you made sure I was all over again. Even this marriage, which I thought I was coming into with eyes wide open, is the most ridiculous farce.”
“Why? Why is it?”
“You need to ask that? You’ve been lying to me! Every damned day that you haven’t told me about Sam and what you did you’ve been lying to me! You told me I could trust you and I’ve been working on that but all the while you must have been laughing at me and my naïve stupidity. I’m five years older than I was then but apparently I’m just as gullible.”
“Not gullible,” he denied fiercely. “Beautifully kind-hearted. You hold people to your own standards so never see them as they really are. Of course you didn’t recognise that Sam was using you – you would never do such a thing so why should you suspect him of that?”
“And I didn’t realise you were using me either. Using me to help dad, in our first marriage. And using me to…”
He moved closer – dangerously close – and her heart lurched sideways. “What? Prop up my ego? Do you think my manhood is so fragile I would need your adoration to secure it?”
She felt about an inch tall. She stared at him, bewildered and hurt.
“I’ve seen the way women look at you. I know your ego is plenty big enough without me.” She grabbed another handful of clothes just for something to do, pushing them into the already overfull bag and lifting it onto her arm.
