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What the hell happened to trust andnot having any more secrets between us?
“You hid that from me.” My chest rattled with pain. “You hid the truth from me after promising you never would again.”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell,mon trésor—”
“Don’t call me that right now!” I smacked a fist against the steering wheel. “Zeno, how could you not tell me? This is monumental!”
Diane Hill was my aunt.
I attempted to digest this news. My body repelled it like a bad case of food poisoning.
“Exactly, this is monumental,” he growled. “I could not sit you down and explain to you your goddamn lineage. Frankly, that was your so-called mother’s job.”
Zeno cursed, seeing my eyes water. “I’m so sorry, Darla.”
“Sorry you got caught omitting the truth?” I asked bitterly.
“Don’t,” he warned, reaching into his suit pocket for his phone. “Don’t try to twist this shit around. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done out of my need to protect you. My silence on this matter stemmed purely from the fact that it was not my place to tell you. You deserved to hear it from Diane.”
I understood where he was coming from, yet the irrational part of me refused to see his point of view. I was angry and hurt. Zeno knew how badly I would take this.
“Are both my real parents dead?”
“Yes.” No hesitation.
Pain.
So much pain pulsed inside of me.
“You’re not just my husband. You’re supposed to be my best friend,” I said, voice cracking mid-sentence. “We’re a team. We swore trust and honesty. Did it never occur to you that hearing the truth from you would have been the lesser evil?”
If Zeno had sat me down in our room and slowly broken the news about my parentage, I would have freaked out. But not like this. Anything was better than learning the truth publicly at an auction where everyone could make a circus out of you.
Zeno’s remorse rolled off him in waves. “Fuck, Darla. I’m sorry.” His hand clenched around my thigh as he shifted closer. “I really thought I was doing what was best for you.”
I shoved his hand away. He hardened like a marble statue.
“My family is on the brink of ruin. All of our secrets were spilled—secrets I’m sure were part of your blackmail material,” I said vehemently. “Did you have anything to do with this?”
Dacia’s career as a lawyer would be impacted.
Diane’s mayoral seat.
My reputation as St. Victoria’s principal.
Everything we’d built would be smashed to smithereens.
“If you think I’m responsible for the contents in that folder becoming public, fucking guess again.”
His remorse churned to anger and slipped into my own pores. Fighting fire with fire was never the right solution. But I felt the irrefutable need to lash at him the way my family had been lashed at tonight.
“Did you destroy the folder, Zeno?” I smirked sardonically. “After you visited my mother and came to a truce, did you burn the folder the same way you burned our contract?”
His jaw clenched so hard, a muscle popped. “I did not…I was going to.”
“How do you think such confidential records found their way at this auction?” I spat.
Diane had already burned the folder given to her—without letting Dacia or me glance at it—and Zeno must have retained the original copy somewhere else.
