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I shook my head. I’d never been able to get him to admit that this whole charade was about Dominic even though I knew it had to be. He’d always alluded that ruining Dominic was only part of the reason, but now, I was actually getting somewhere.
“All of this is just to hurt Dominic? Why?”
Trevor looked almost relieved that I’d finally asked, and he launched into some sort of maniacal diatribe. “Because he has everything without even trying! The last name. The power. Money. You. He hasn’t had to work for anything! Everything just falls into his lap, and the whole town worships him for it. I’m sick of being in his shadow. It’s time the town saw me as a winner instead of second best to the golden boy who doesn’t even want the title!”
I wanted to argue because Dominic had started his business without any help and made it into what it was today all on his own. He’d never used his name for clout, refused to fall in line and do what was expected of him. If anything, he’d made his life so much harder by going against his father’s wishes.
“He looked out for you. Brought you home, so you could have a better life.”
Trevor made a disgusted sound as spit flew from his lips. “He pitied me. He’s always pitied me.”
“That’s not true.”
At least, it hadn’t been at the start. Dominic had genuinely liked Trevor, trusted him even. But all that had changed sometime during high school.
“It doesn’t matter,” he challenged. “None of it matters now because I have you. So, you see, Dove, I win.”
My stomach twisted into knots. I knew this was a game to him, but it seemed so fucking insane that the only reason behind all the conniving and manipulation was because he despised Dominic.
“You really hate him that much?”
He leveled me with a glare so vicious that it made my skin crawl. “I want him to know what it feels like to have nothing. To know how the misery can burn through the cells in your body every second of every day. To wake up each morning filled with dread instead of hope and knowing there’s no way out of it. He’s never experienced a single day like that. Now, he’ll live a whole lifetime of it.”
Trevor sounded so proud of what he’d been able to accomplish—blackmailing me into leaving the only man I’d ever loved.
“You know I’ll never love you, right? This will never be real,” I asked, my voice coming out in a broken whisper as he sat down and crossed his legs. He looked so relaxed and in control, while I felt completely out of it.
“Yes, Dove, I know you’ll never love me. The thing is, I don’t care. This isn’t about love. Knowing that Dominic will never be happy again is all that matters to me. I want to destroy him.”
“You really are vile,” I said, my tone louder this time.
“Don’t sound so surprised, sweetheart.”
But I was. I truly was. Knowing that Trevor felt competitive was one thing, normal even, but this was on a completely different level. This went beyond typical guy-ego stuff.
“Oh yeah, if you are even thinking about planning something disruptive during our wedding, you’d better stop now. There is no scheme that the two of you could come up with that I haven’t already anticipated. So, if I were you, I’d call Dominic off, or I’ll have your dad arrested during our reception. In front of everyone. And you and I will both stand there and watch him get hauled off in the back of a cop car. Are we clear?”
If I’d thought my throat had dried up before, it was the Sahara Desert now. I almost started choking. I couldn’t breathe. I despised feeling weak and powerless, and somehow, Trevor excelled at making me feel both.
“There are no plans,” I attempted to say, but the words got caught, and I started coughing. Thank God there was a glass of water on my desk. I downed the entire thing in one long gulp. My eyes met Trevor’s as I repeated the last line. “There are no plans. Nothing is happening.”
“Keep it that way,” he demanded before shoving the chair back and standing to leave. “Don’t forget about dinner tonight. I’ll have a car pick you up at seven. Wear the black Chanel.”
I watched him walk out the door before I lost it completely. A hundred different ways of bashing his brains in flashed through my mind.
If only I wouldn’t go to prison after doing it, I thought to myself.
Dominic had never controlled me. It was such a foreign feeling—being told what to do at every turn. How to dress. How to speak. How to act appropriately. I wasn’t usually the type to acquiesce, but this wasn’t a normal situation I’d gotten myself into.
Kristina walked into my office, her dark hair swishing across her shoulders, distracting me from my own self-hatred. “I can’t stand that you’re engaged to that prick. But I hate more that you won’t tell me why or what happened between you and Dom.”
She was starting in again, and I was in no frame of mind to deal with her nonstop questions.
“Just stop. Please.” It was all I could manage at the moment.
Seeing Dominic earlier had drained me. Listening to Trevor’s threats had only further deflated me. My head was still spinning from the fact that he had been able to get into my phone this whole time and I’d been too stupid to realize it.
“I’m just saying, you understand that no one buys this, right? Not a single person in this entire town thinks that you love Trevor O’Connor.”
