Wedding Vow of Revenge(49)
“His private investigator,” Baron replied before Angelo could answer. “Tell her how you bribed my private investigator to keep quiet about your relationship with Tara.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been watching me all this time. That’s illegal, you miscreant.”
He looked at her like he couldn’t comprehend why she was hung up on that detail. She could have told him if he asked. The truth that was being revealed about her husband’s pursuit of her hurt so much, she simply could not deal with it. She felt like a million little knives were shredding every happy emotion inside her.
“Tara, Angelo only went after you to get back at me.”
Angelo cursed, a word she’d never heard him use, forcing her to acknowledge his presence and the pain slashing at her insides.
She turned from Baron, dismissing him from her mind as if he no longer existed and faced her husband. “The first time we met…you used my report as an excuse to see me, didn’t you? You already knew who I was and what I had been to Baron.”
Angelo’s jaw set with rock like tension. “Yes.”
“I told you.”
The sound of Baron’s voice was like nails scoring a chalkboard on her nerves. She rose from her chair, her body vibrating with unbearable tension and fury, and faced her ex-lover and her husband.
“Listen to me closely, Baron, because this is the one and only time I’m going to say this.”
The look of smug satisfaction he’d been wearing disappeared at the tone of her voice.
“According to both you and my husband, he was aware of your bizarre efforts to keep track of me. That means that either he or Hawk has sufficient evidence to support charges being brought against you for stalking. Is that true, Angelo?” She asked the question without taking her baleful stare from Baron.
“Yes, stellina. True.”
She flinched at the endearment, but kept her gaze firmly fixed on Baron.
He had blanched, apparently finally coming to terms with the fact he had boxed himself into a dangerous corner where she was concerned.
“I want you to leave. I don’t ever want to hear from or see you again. If you ever attempt to contact me in any way or resume your pathetic little game, I will not only file both civil and criminal charges against you, but I will make darn sure your wife’s divorce attorney has all the evidence she needs to paint you in a light so deranged and amoral, you’ll be lucky to walk away from that marriage wearing socks under your shoes. Do I make myself clear?”
“Tara—”
“Do, I, Baron?”
“You’ve changed.”
“And you haven’t, but that’s not the issue, is it?”
“No, it is not,” Angelo answered, his voice colder than an Arctic wind. “The issue is that if Randall comes near you again, the picture you have painted for him will seem like the Elysian Fields compared to what I will do to him.”
“I’m leaving,” Baron gritted out, “but ask yourself if you should stay with a man capable of using you the way Angelo Gordon has.”
The parting words sent wounding shards into her already bleeding heart. She refused to give Baron the satisfaction of seeing her hurt, but what made it hard for her to even breathe was that no matter what sick motivation had prompted his revelations, he had been speaking the truth.
Angelo had used her to exact revenge against his enemy.
She didn’t mean anything to him. Not really. And that truth tore through her with all the emotionally destroying force of a level ten earthquake. She gripped the table rim in an effort to stay upright.
“Angelo?” she croaked.
He was by her side in a second, his big hands gripping her waist and shoulder. “Yes, stellina?”
“I want to go home now.”
She felt like she was being ripped apart. She knew Angelo didn’t love her, but to be nothing more than an instrument of revenge for the man who owned her heart was more than she could bear.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN THEY REACHED the apartment, she went to the bedroom and started packing. She didn’t pay attention to what she grabbed, she just pulled clothes from drawers and dumped them in the big suitcase she’d tossed on the bed.
“You are not leaving me.”
She didn’t acknowledge him with so much as a glance.
Long tanned fingers wrested the top she had just grabbed from her fingers. “No. We are going to talk.”
“We have nothing to talk about.” Remembering saying those same words to Baron made her flinch. “I’m not staying.”
“So, you let him win.”
She spun to face him at that, fury so intense she was shaking with it, filling her to the brim. “No one wins in the sick scenario. Not you. Not him. And certainly not me. You used me, Angelo. You lied to me and you promised me you never would.”