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I’m going to have to take my punishment—publicly—but not for the crime Mitchell is accusing me of. Blackmail and corruption are the cornerstones of British society. My true crime is being a class traitor—a rich man targeting other rich men. Ultimately,thisis the crime I’m going to be hanged, drawn and quartered for.
And I still don’t care.
My father takes his leave eventually, frustrated by my apathy. He gives me strict orders to not leave the house until our PR teams and crisis management people get here, and he tells Woodrow I’m not to make any contact with the outside world until I know my script and can recite my lines in my sleep.
“You havefucked up,” he says to me on his way out, jaw clenched tight, jabbing a finger into my chest. “I expected so much from you, Luca.”
“I know you did.”
He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else, and I can almost hear Willow’s name poised on his tongue. He must have realised that bringing her up would cause more harm than good because in the end, he leaves without another word.
“Where is she?” I ask Woodrow as soon as I’m back in the living room.
“There’s been no movement from the tracker,” he answers tightly, speaking through what I’m sure is a crowd of things he wishes he could say.
I sink back into the couch with an exhausted sigh. “That’s because I released her from the tracker.”
“May I ask why, sir?”
“Because…”
Why did I free her from the bracelet? Why did I give her the code to my office?
Because I wanted to. Because I fucking love Willow Lynch, all the poison and mess and chaos of her, and because I wanted to please her. And I knew this might happen, I half-expected it. I placed myself underneath her foot knowing I was giving her the power to snap my spine with her boot. Part of me hoped she wouldn’t. All of me knew she might.
My destruction at her hands makes complete sense; I would rather it come at her hands than anybody else’s.
But I never thought she’d fuckingleave.
“Sir?” Woodrow draws closer. For the first time in all the years he’s worked for me, he sets aside his tablet and takes a seat at my side. “Are you alright?”
I nod slowly, emerging from the mire of my thoughts. “The contract.”
“The contract?”
“The one I made her sign. She’s still legally bound by it. I made sure she couldn’t get out of it, not without my help. Even if she went to a lawyer, they could just be paid away. I still have the contract.”
“Sir…” Woodrow says, a melancholy droop in his mouth. “She made her choice. She’s gone. Let it be. Move on. Rebuild. You’ve not lost everything, and you’re not going to.”
“I don’t care about losing everything, Ned. I care about losing her.”
“She was never yours to lose.”
That’s where Woodrow is wrong. Willow Lynch ismine. Like a foil tailor-made to perfectly fit the grip of a fencer, she’s made forme, her existence perfectly moulded to mine. I know it, and she knew it too. That’s why she was afraid, that’s why she left. Coward.
Filthy, beautiful fuckingcoward.
So she’s angry at me. So I stole the revenge she’s been seeking all these years. So she feels betrayed and robbed because she doesn’t understand the gift I gave her, because I unknowingly took something she was coveting for herself. So she thinks I’m selfish, narcissistic, a thief, a bastard, a worthless, unlovable piece of human trash.
So what?
She should have dealt her deathblows to my face. She should have destroyed me and watched; she should have stayed and fought me and let rain the entire thunderstorm of her rage upon me. If she hates me as much as she claims to, then she should hate me in person, hate me face-to-face and body-to-body.
Coward. I could forgive her any sin. I could forgive her cruelty, her thievery, her betrayal. I could have forgiven a shot straight to the heart and a knife to the gut.
But I willneverforgive her cowardice.
50
