The next words she heard made her decision for her.
“Damn it, Chrysander, there is no need to marry her. Put her up in an apartment somewhere until the child comes. Don’t tie yourself to her and give her access to everything you own.”
Her mouth rounded in shock at Piers’s angry words.
“She is pregnant with my child,” Chrysander said icily. “That I choose to marry her is none of your concern.”
She moved closer to the door, not caring whether they saw her. What right did Piers have to talk to Chrysander so?
“You can’t mean to marry her!” Roslyn’s shrill voice rose. “Do you forget how she stole from you? That she tried to ruin your company? If you need any reminders, just look at the new hotels going up in Paris and Rome. Your hotels, Chrysander. Only they’re going up under your competitor’s name.”
A haze blew through Marley’s mind. Red hot. Like a swarm of angry bees, tidbits of information began buzzing in her head. And suddenly it was as if a dam broke. The locked door in her mind that she’d tried so hard to budge simply opened, and the past came roaring through with vicious velocity.
She swayed and gripped the door frame tighter. Nausea boiled in her stomach as each and every moment flashed like a movie in fast-forward.
Chrysander’s angry accusation of thievery. His ordering her from their apartment, his life. Her abduction and the months she’d spent in hopeless fear, waiting for Chrysander to answer the ransom demands. Demands he’d ignored.
Oh God, she was going to be sick.
He’d left her. Discarded her like a piece of rubbish. The half million dollars, a paltry sum to a man of Chrysander’s means, was an amount he’d been unwilling to part with to ensure her return.
Everything had been a lie. He’d lied to her nonstop since she’d awoken in the hospital. He didn’t love her or want her. He despised her.
She hadn’t been worth half a million dollars to him.
Pain splintered through her chest as she shattered. As everything she’d known as true suddenly turned black. Her heart withered and cracked, falling in pieces around her.
He hadn’t tried to save her.
The tortured cry that ripped from her mouth echoed through the room. She clamped a hand over her lips, but it was too late. Everyone looked her way. Theron flinched, and an odd discomfort settled over Piers’s face. She met Chrysander’s gaze, and she could see the truth in his eyes as he realized that she remembered.
As he started across the room toward her, she backed away, stumbling as she did. Oh God, she couldn’t face this. Tears blurred her vision. The image of his pale face only spurred her on.
Marley fled down the hallway toward the lobby. Chrysander called her name, but she didn’t stop. Sobs bubbled from her chest and exploded outward. She stumbled but regained her footing and pushed herself forward. Behind her, Chrysander cursed and called out to her again.
She was running for the exit, no clear destination in mind. She was nearly there when she met with a mountain. Stavros stepped in front of her and held her, and she exploded in fury, kicking and shoving. Her only thought was to get away, as far away from this place as she could.
She broke free but stumbled backward and fell to the floor. Stavros was down beside her, asking her if she was all right, and she knew she was trapped.
Pain cycled through her body, an unending stream of agony. She closed her eyes as Chrysander’s strong hands slid over her body. In an urgent voice, he demanded to know if she was hurt, but she was incapable of answering him. She curled into a ball, uncaring that she was in the middle of the hotel lobby.
Chrysander picked her up, and she could hear him saying her name. Curses fell from his lips, and then he barked orders for someone to summon a doctor. He strode away from the noise of the lobby, and a few moments later, he entered an empty hotel room.
As soon as he lowered her to the bed, she curled herself into a tight ball again and turned away from him. She flinched when he put his hand on her, his touch light and concerned.
“You must stop crying, agape mou. You’re going to make yourself ill.”
She was already sick, she thought dully. Utterly sick at heart. She closed her eyes, but still hot tears streamed down her cheeks, even as Chrysander wiped them away with his fingers.
She wanted to escape. Go some place where it didn’t hurt so much. Through the fog, she heard Chrysander conversing with the doctor. A moment later, she felt a prick in her arm, but she didn’t react. She didn’t care. And then she floated away, so grateful that the pain had receded. Her mind grew fuzzy as the veil of sleep descended over her. Oblivion. She reached for it. Embraced it and wrapped it around her as she slipped away to a place where there was no hurt and no betrayal.