I storm into the house, my heels clacking against the hardwood floor with every furious step.
My pulse is pounding in my ears, my breath sawing in and out of my mouth too fast, but I don’t stop.
I can’t stop.
If I do, I’ll let him talk.
If I let him talk, I might break before I even get the chance to process what I’m feeling.
Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll break because I’ve gone and fallen in love with him.
And that seems like the silliest thing of all.
I hear the screen door open and close behind me.
Simon follows a few steps in my wake, his voice as urgent as his stride. “Sweetheart, I get that you’re upset. You have every right to be. I never intended to hurt you. Please, just let me explain.”
Explain? He wants to explain?
More like he wants to justify his actions. I had more than enough of that from Carl to last a lifetime.
I wheel around on him so quickly he nearly collides into me-he’s faster and closer than I expected.
Hands shaking, my chest tightening, I can’t stop reeling from the truth that just exploded my world. Or just my world as I thought it was, I suppose.
“What would you like to start with? How many times have I asked for the truth and you lied? Or shall we begin with Luis, because I pressed you for more information every single time he showed up out of nowhere, and you know what you did?”
He winces, but he’s smart enough not to answer.
“You lied to me, Simon. Right to my face. Same as Carl.”
His entire face falls at that, and damn it, why do I have to feel bad? He’s the one at fault here, unless we count my silly heart for flinging itself at his feet so easily.
“It was never my intention to deceive you,” he says. “I merely wanted a fighting chance. Just me, not Simon Jones, CEO of Jones Corp.”
Tears sting my eyes. I clench my fists and let my nails dig into my palms, redirecting my attention there so I don’t cry.
“A fighting chance? Maybe that’s where you’d rather start. Trying to make me forget your dishonesty by telling me how many helicopters, yachts, and private jets you own.” I don’t care that my voice is sharp, laced with something raw that refuses to be pushed down. “Is that what a billionaire CEO thinks will persuade a gal like me to magically trust him?”
“I never expected it to work against me rather than be treated as a bonus, that’s for certain,” he mutters, scrubbing a frustrated hand over his face.
Fury burns scoring lines through me. Does he think this is funny? That I want to be questioning everything about my fiancé and what we have together the night before our wedding?
“Still skirting my questions, I see.” My heart rends, tugging one way and then the other and leaving me equally ripped in two. “Perhaps you’d like to explain how I met you on the streets, then. Let’s start with how I thought I was caring for a man in need, while you’ve been living a life I can’t even comprehend.”
Inhaling a lungful of oxygen, I force out the rest of the accusation that threatens to shatter me. “All while I thought we were in this together. I feel like such an idiot-and you played me for one.”
Simon winces, and I fight my urge to soften and make it okay for him, when it’s absolutely not. Not his lying or pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
While he wouldn’t take the necklace I attempted to return to him in the ballroom, I’d handed it off to Luis on my way out. He’d been too stunned to do anything besides say, “Yes, ma’am. Are you sure, ma’am?”
Standing there across from each other in the narrow hallway that leads to my bedroom, Simon reaches out his arm. “Victoria?-“
My heart judders to a halt as he goes to place a hand on my shoulder. I can’t-I’m not there yet. Any time he touches me it’s too hard to think straight, so I quickly jerk away.
“You lied to me, Simon.” To my dismay, my voice cracks. I hate that it makes it sound like I’m breaking. Hate that my heart is completely shattered, my ardent attempts to stop it coming way too late.
And I hate that tears are lodged in my throat, no matter how hard I try to cling to my angry resolve. “Can’t you see the problem? How am I ever supposed to trust you again?”
Simon reels back as if I slapped him, but I refuse to let that prevent me from getting the rest off my chest. Because I’m hardly done.
“What? You thought it was funny, getting pity from a woman struggling to get by? Did you find it amusing, watching me fail over and over again, while you, Mr. Billionaire, could’ve fixed everything with just a simple snap of your fingers?”
Regret flickers through his features. “That’s not why I did it.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Then why? Because I’d really like to know why someone like you would bother pretending to want to marry someone like me.”
His jaw unhinges and hangs open, and good. See how he likes being stunned speechless.
Of-freaking-course he recovers far faster than I do.
“You think I was pretending?” He steps closer, eradicating the gap of space between us and sucking up all my oxygen. His voice comes out lower, rougher, as he spreads his arms wide. “Do you honestly think I’ve never struggled? That I don’t know what it feels like to lose everything?”
I watch the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, wishing I didn’t find him so damn sexy right now.
“The reason I was out on those streets, living like that for six months was to ensure my family’s legacy. I have family members of my own that were out to hurt me, and so I did what it took to take care of it. Same way you would with Jade and Linda, and no matter what happens between us, I’ll ensure they’re in no position to hurt you ever again…” he says.
I don’t back down, even though part of me wants to. Because he hurt me. It’s not just about the lie. It’s about trust.
And I don’t know if I can trust him anymore.
I made this same mistake with Carl, thinking we had something real, when all we had was a past. “Just admit it. I was a project. Some girl you could play normal with for a while. A desperate woman you could dress up and impress with your money and pulled strings. Until you get bored and go back to your real life.”
The pain that flickers through his features hurts me, too.
“That’s not fair,” he says.
“Fair?” My eyes burn, and I can’t keep the tears at bay anymore. I blink my heavily mascaraed eyelashes as my tears escape and spill down my cheeks. “Was it fair that you let me fall in love with someone who doesn’t even exist?”
“Is everything okay in there?” Dang it, my grandma’s heard us fighting. I don’t have it in me to explain.
That’s Simon’s territory, and from where I’m standing, he doesn’t even do a good job of it.
“We’re okay, Grandma,” I call, while at the same time Simon says:
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.