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I sigh.
“We need to talk to Gage and Beckett to form a plan. I’m not just turning you over to him without assurances that he has Ri.”
She nods and brushes past me. I follow her out to where Hayes is standing in the hallway. His eyebrows shoot up as she marches past him without a glance, her feet angrily pounding the ground as she walks.
“You pissed her off already? After all I did to relax her, you’ve already fucked that up?” Hayes teases me.
“Drop it,” I growl.
Hayes chuckles and follows us to the living room.
“Beckett! Gage!” Rialta hollers down the hallway.
They poke their heads out of a room and find us in the living room. Beckett doesn’t stop gripping his waist, where I know he keeps his gun.
“I’m going to help you get River back. You don’t need to shoot me or torture me,” Rialta snaps at Beckett.
He removes his hand from his gun. “How?”
“By trading me to Andrea for her. He wants me. He loves me. He wants to be the Corsi heir and for me to marry him and have his babies.”
Beckett looks to me, but I’m stone silent.
It’s a lie, but I’m not giving away my own plan—not yet.
“How do we ensure he has Ri and Andrea will return her safe and sound?” Beckett asks.
“You make me your hostage and threaten to impregnate me with one of your babies. Vincent has already agreed to make whoever knocks me up his heir. Andrea loves me—but he loves the idea of taking over my father’s job more.”
Beckett’s face softens. “You don’t have to do this.”
“But I want to—not just to get River back, but because you’re right, Beckett. I’m not on your side. I’m your enemy; if enemies, we have to be. I want to be with Andrea. I choose Andrea,” she says.
Beckett stares at me, waiting for me to tell him the truth. He seems to have calmed down from earlier when he was trying to torture information out of her now that she’s speaking freely.
Gage is also staring at me, waiting.
But I have no answer to give them. The test I gave her tells me she doesn’t love Andrea. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t chosen him to be her husband, just that she doesn’t love him. But for some reason, she thinks he will make her happy, that he will protect her, that he will be a better heir, a better father, better everything.
Hayes is the only one not looking at me. He’s staring her down. “Like hell you choose Andrea.”
Everyone’s eyes whip to Hayes.
“Just because I fucked you doesn’t mean I love you, Hayes,” Rialta says.
Gage’s eyebrows shoot up in amusement. Beckett glares at Hayes disapprovingly.
Hayes chuckles, shaking his head. “You’re not in love with me. But you sure as hell aren’t in love with Andrea.”
“Why does everyone think they know who I love? Did you all gain mind-reading capabilities in the time I was gone? You don’t know me. You’ve never known me. I’m not your precious Ri! I’m not her. I’m not in love with all of you. I’m not your friend. I have my own agenda. And I want to choose my own life. I was forced into a marriage with Lennox, but I never loved him. And now that he’s killed Kit—I never will love him.”
All eyes jump to me as I stand frozen, just watching her, looking for any clue as to her real agenda. But she just laid it out for all of us. She doesn’t love anyone anymore. But she hates me, and Andrea is the only choice she has to get away from me.
Silence stretches between all of us. There is nothing more to be said. I won’t force her to stay, and Beckett will do anything to get his wife and unborn child back. She wants to go—so I have to let her.
But she’s lying.
She hates me, yes. But that doesn’t mean she won’t fall back in love with me.
