Beauty and the Bachelor(36)

"Wouldn't return to the man you had lunch with behind my back? The man  who you'd been ready to spend your life with? A man whose memory was so  precious to you, you couldn't bear to have sex with me on our wedding  night? Is this the man you wouldn't go back to?"

"I didn't love him. I've never loved him. I lo-" She broke off, wrapping her arms around her chest.

"You what?" he demanded. But she just shook her head again.

A part of him wanted to grab her, demand she supply him with a good  reason for Tyler being in his home-their home-and make him believe her.  But that foolish part of him had also convinced him to leave work, go  home early, and reconcile with her. Tell her he no longer wanted the  distance that had sprung up between them. While he'd been intent on  reaffirming what they'd shared, she'd been with her ex-fiancé.         

     



 

For years, he'd had a ringside seat to the clusterfuck that had been his  parents' marriage. And yet he'd still started to trust, to believe a  woman could be loyal … faithful. Maybe he was too much like his father  after all.

He strode past her toward his study and the bottles of bourbon waiting for him.

"You don't get to walk away from me yet," she stated, and the soft,  stark command plummeted into the room like a meteor slamming into earth.  Slowly, he pivoted around. Sydney lowered her arms, and that's when he  noticed the papers clutched in her fingers. "You don't want to listen to  anything I have to say because you're intent on punishing me for a sin  committed years ago. I'm not your mother. I would never take something  so precious between us and pervert and twist it by sleeping with another  man. You've never let go of what she did, never forgiven her for it.  And now I'm paying the price. That's one strike." She shifted closer to  him, her chin notched high. And fury, not sorrow, darkened her gaze. It  blazed up at him, hot, accusatory. "But don't you call me a liar or tell  me I've betrayed you when that's all you've done from the first day we  met."

She slapped the papers into his chest, and he had no choice but to catch  them or they would've fluttered to the floor. Oh, damn. The contract  pushing Jason Blake out. But how … ? He curled his fingers into a tight  fist. They'd been on his desk in his study when he'd left the house this  morning.

"You lied to me," she rasped. "You promised me you would leave my father  alone if I married you. And all this time you've been planning to steal  his company right out from under him, with me beside you. You. Used.  Me."

"I promised you I wouldn't report your father to the authorities, and I haven't. I kept my end of the bargain."

"You lied by omission, damn it. Don't split hairs with me." She paced  away from him, rubbing her hands over her arms as if chilled. "Were you  going to tell me?" Before he could reply, she laughed. The brittle edge  of it scraped over his skin, pierced his heart. "Of course not. That  would be truthful, and as you warned me, the only way to fight is  dirty."

"Sydney, this has nothing to do with you," he gritted out, wondering why  he bothered to explain. She was going to leave. They all did.

"Nothing to do with me? Are you serious? You're planning to ruin my  father, and it has nothing to do with me? God, Lucas. Do you think this  is what your father wanted for you? To turn around and inflict on  someone else the same pain and betrayal he suffered?"

"You don't know what you're talking about," he snapped. "You know nothing-"

The peal of his cell phone reverberated. He snatched it from his pocket,  saw Aiden's name, and sent the call to voicemail. Seconds later it rang  again. Aiden.

"Damn it," he growled, punching the answer button. "What?"

"Turn on the television, Luke. CNN."

None of his friend's usual humor carried through the line. No smart-ass  remark for the manner in which he'd answered the phone. His stomach  dipped as if he'd just zoomed down a steep hill on a bike without  brakes. Terrifying.

He stalked to the den next to the living room. Without removing the cell  from his ear, he jerked up the remote and turned on the television. An  eternity seemed to eke by before he found the correct channel.

"Oh, Jesus," he breathed.

" … arrived at the Boston division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Our information is limited at this time, but it has been confirmed that  Jason Blake of Blake Corporation is being investigated for accounting  fraud. This morning … "

A cry ripped through the air. He whipped around. Sydney leaned against the door, her eyes like dark ovals in her pale face.

"Sydney," he whispered.

"No," she cut him off, her voice as sharp and serrated at a knife.  Anger, pain, and what might have been grief swirled in her eyes. For a  moment, her mouth trembled, but it firmed, her expression hardening.  "Did you do this?"

He should've expected the question, should've known she'd assume he  would be behind her father's arrest. And yet … yet her obvious mistrust  burned him raw. "No," he rasped. "I promised you-"

"You promised me several things, Lucas." She straightened, shifting away  from the door frame. "You vowed that I wouldn't walk alone. You swore  that as long as we were together, you would spend every day proving how  special I was to you. Special? Today you've proven that I'm not any  different from the other women you've had in your life, in your bed. I'm  renting your last name, but I'm just one of many women you've never  trusted. You can't accept that I might be worthy of that trust, of that  faith, because then you would have to admit you've been living the past  fifteen years in a prison of bitterness for nothing." She wrapped her  arms around her chest, but in the next moment dropped them to her sides,  curling her fingers in fists. "Our contract is null and void. It was  broken the moment you set all this"-she flung a hand toward the  television-"in motion. I won't live my life in your prison-I won't live  the next eleven months like that. By marrying Tyler, I would've settled  for a shallow, anemic existence. But with you? I'm consigning myself to a  sentence of losing myself to your hatred and lust for revenge that will  only end up destroying both of us. I refuse to do it, Lucas. I want  more than that. I'm worth more than that. We could've been more than  that," she whispered.         

     



 

Shaking her head, she whirled around. Disappeared.

And he was alone.

 …

"And God said, let there be light," Aiden declared, throwing open the  door to Lucas's study. He stretched his arms wide, but when the room  remained as dark as ever except for the low lamp on his desk, his friend  shrugged. "I guess that only works for God, then."

"What are you doing here?" Lucas snapped as he poured himself another  drink. The third-fourth, fifth?-that morning. He'd been a slow riser  today.

"Coming to make merry with you, of course," Aiden drawled. "How does it  feel to finally obtain everything you've slaved, plotted, planned, and  schemed for? I have to tell you, for a man who has won, you don't look  very, uh, celebratory."

Celebratory? He didn't feel anything. Triumph, sorrow, anger, happiness.  Thanks to the barrels of bourbon he'd downed in the three days since  Sydney had left him, he'd felt nothing but the burn and numbness of  liquor.

But even the alcohol couldn't erase the image of the devastation and  accusation on her face before she'd disappeared. And it didn't matter  that he hadn't turned her father in; the guilt still gnawed at him with  razor-sharp, ravenous teeth.

"You're an asshole." Aiden slapped his palms on the desk, sloshing the liquor around in the tumbler.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific," Lucas advised, picking up his glass.

"Okay, how about for fucking up the best thing that has ever happened to you? There's one."

Lucas sighed, sipped, and tipped his head back against the office chair. "She left me."

"As well she should've," Aiden snarled. Then, falling into the visitor's  chair with a sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose. In a drunken  stupor, Lucas had relayed to his friend what'd happened the day he  arrived home to find Tyler with Sydney. About the fight. The  accusations. "You were a grade-A bastard, accusing her of cheating with  no proof. If there's a woman who is more loyal, sacrificing, and kind  than Sydney, she'd need to be nominated for sainthood. She was perfect  for you. If you would've let her. Luke"-Aiden leaned forward, waiting  for Lucas to meet his gaze-"she loves you. A blind man could see that.  And I have damn near twenty-twenty vision."

Lucas tried to, but he couldn't block out the pictures that bombarded  him like BB gun pellets. The hurt in her eyes. The quiet pleading. The  anger. Love? He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. If she'd  harbored any affection for him, he'd killed it with his all-consuming  desire for revenge.