Chapter 2 - THE MISTRESS, THE SPY, AND THE CHOICE
Grant frowned.
Sloane went perfectly still.
Willa noticed.
Damian noticed that Willa noticed.
For one fraction of a second, his gray eyes met hers.
Then he looked back at Sloane.
“Who is Malcolm Voss?” Grant asked.
Sloane shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“Strange,” Damian said. “Considering a company connected to him has deposited nine thousand dollars into your consulting account every month for thirteen months.”
The color left her face.
Grant turned sharply.
“What?”
Damian reached inside his jacket.
Willa’s pulse jumped.
But he only removed his phone.
He tapped the screen once and placed it on the dining table.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Hotel security images.
Sloane sitting across from a silver-haired man.
Sloane entering Grant’s office after midnight.
Sloane photographing documents.
Grant stared.
“What the hell is this?”
Damian’s expression didn’t change.
“Sloane was never interested in you.”
“That’s a lie.”
She grabbed Grant’s arm.
“Baby, don’t listen—”
Damian almost looked amused.
“She approached you at the Brighton Hotel thirteen months ago. Three weeks after Malcolm Voss failed to acquire our freight property on the river.”
Grant pulled his arm away from her.
“No.”
“She encouraged you to drink. She encouraged you to complain about your brother. She encouraged you to bring your work home.”
Sloane’s mouth tightened.
“You can’t prove anything.”
“I don’t accuse people when I can’t.”
Damian swiped the screen.
Another photograph.
Grant’s laptop open on a hotel bed.
Sloane standing above it with her phone.
Grant looked physically ill.
Willa should have felt satisfaction.
Instead, she felt tired.
Terribly, completely tired.
Sloane had slept with her husband.
Used him.
Humiliated her.
And somehow Willa still felt sorry for Grant.
Perhaps that was the saddest thing seven years of marriage had done to her.
It had trained her to pity the man who wounded her.
Damian put his phone away.
“Sloane, you were right about one thing.”
She stared at him.....
“This family does have something worthless in it.”
Grant flinched.
Damian looked directly at his brother.
“But it isn’t Willa.”
Silence.
Then, finally, he turned to her.
Willa’s breath caught.
Damian Bell had always been courteous to her.
Too courteous.
He stood whenever she entered a room. He remembered which tea she drank. He sent a car if Grant forgot her somewhere, which had happened more than once.
But he had always kept a strange distance between them.
A wall she had assumed was dislike.
Now she saw something else in his face.
Not pity.
Respect.
Maybe even anger on her behalf.
“Sloane called you worthless,” Damian said.
Willa could feel everyone looking at her.
She hated it.
Damian continued.
“My brother stood there and let her.”
Grant closed his eyes.
“Willa,” Damian said, “I cannot correct seven years in one evening. But I can correct one thing.”
He looked at Grant.
“You traded something real for something shiny.”
Then he looked at Sloane.
“And you walked into another woman’s home because you thought her silence meant weakness.”
Sloane’s voice trembled with fury.
“You don’t know anything about her.”
Damian’s gaze turned glacial.
“I know exactly enough.”
He stepped toward the entry hall.
“Both of you leave.”
Grant stared at him.
“This is my house.”
“No.”
The word was almost gentle.
“It belongs jointly to you and your wife.”
Grant’s mouth opened.
Damian added, “Tonight, you’re the one who has somewhere else to sleep.”
“You can’t throw me out of my own home.”
“I’m not.”
Damian looked toward Willa.
“She can.”
Everyone turned to her.
Suddenly the room felt enormous.
Willa looked at Grant.
Seven years flashed through her mind.
The first date.
His ridiculous jokes.
His hand on her knee in the taxi.
His proposal.
The cardboard box into which she had packed her brushes after he told her she would never need to work again.
The first missed anniversary.
The second.
The nights she waited until two in the morning with dinner getting cold.
The diets she tried because he stopped touching her.
The expensive clothes she bought because she thought perhaps the right dress could resurrect desire.
The friends she stopped calling.
The life she stopped living.
She looked at Sloane.
Then back at Grant.
“Leave.”
Grant’s face crumpled.
“Willa—”
“Please leave my house.”
And there it was.
Not screaming.
Not shattered glass.
Not revenge.
Just a sentence.
For the first time in years, her voice belonged completely to her.
Grant picked up his jacket.
Sloane followed him.
At the doorway, however, she turned.
Her pride had been stripped raw.
“This isn’t over.”
Damian looked at her.
“Yes, it is.”
The front door slammed moments later.
Evelyn began crying.
Willa remained seated.
The food was cold.
One candle had burned low enough for wax to spill over silver.
Damian returned to his chair.
Nobody knew what to say.
Willa stared at her plate for almost a minute.
Then she started laughing.
Evelyn looked horrified.
Damian’s eyebrow lifted.
Willa covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Another laugh escaped.
“I spent four hours choosing those scallops.”
That did it.
She laughed harder.
Not because anything was funny.
Because if she didn’t laugh, she thought she might split in half.
Tears came next.
Damian remained where he was.
He didn’t rush to touch her.
He didn’t tell her everything would be fine.
He simply waited.
When Willa finally wiped her face, he said, “Better?”
“No.”
May you like
A tiny smile touched his mouth.
“Good answer.”
