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“If you don’t care, then why haven’t you broken the engagement yet?” my father taunted. “Like you said, you were forced into it. The first thing you should’ve done after getting rid of the photos was get rid ofher.”
A painful crack in my chest drowned out Dante’s reply. A burn ignited somewhere north of my heart and spread behind my eyes, so intense I feared it would leave nothing except ashes behind.
I wasforcedinto this engagement…
I never willingly chose her…
You blackmailed me into it…
The words echoed in my head like a nightmare stuck on a broken loop.
Suddenly, it all made sense.
Why Dante agreed to marry me when he didn’t need my father’s business, money,orconnections.
Why he’d been so cold toward me at the start of our engagement.
Why Luca had disliked me, and why my intuition had always questioned the reasoning Dante gave for the engagement. I’d overlooked the flimsiness of the market access excuse because it’d been the only plausible one at the time, but now…
The omelet I ate for breakfast rose in my throat. My skin flushed hot, then cold, while an army of invisible spiders crawled over my arms and chest.
I should leave before they caught me eavesdropping, but I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything except stand there while my world crumbled around me.
I never willingly chose her.
You blackmailed me into it.
The burn liquefied and blurred my vision. The astronomy date, the Paris trip, and all the little moments in between.
Had he been pretending this whole time? Trying to make the most out of a bad situation instead of—
A burst of laughter down the hall yanked me out of my spiraling thoughts.
My head jerked up in time to see two suited men walking toward me, filled with the type of swagger one only possessed if they sat in the C-suite of a multibillion-dollar company.
Their arrival broke the immobility spell holding me hostage.
The one on the right noticed me first, but by the time his face lit with recognition, I was already rushing past him, my head ducked and my gaze fixed on the floor ahead.
Just get to the exit. Get to the exit and go downstairs. That’s all you need to do.
Five more steps.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
I burst into the lobby like a swimmer gasping for air.
I shoved the food at an alarmed-looking Stacey and mumbled something about a work emergency before I jabbed at the elevator button.
Thankfully, it came in seconds.
I stepped inside, the car plummeted toward the ground, and I finally,finallylet my tears fall.
