Page 55 of The Rancher's Second-Choice Wife

But I just can’t stand by and do nothing.

Please give this a listen. That’s all I ask. Please.

Poppy asked for her boss’s permission to use his computer, and her heart was already pounding as she plugged the data stick and saw there was only a single audio file saved.

“I’ve already bent a lot of rules the last time.”

Poppy didn’t recognize the woman’s voice at all.

“And I don’t plan on making a habit out of it. This time, I need to be in possession of all of the facts—”

“Then ask me whatever you want.”

That, Poppy readily recognized, and her heart was already breaking at the mere sound of his voice. I thought I was over him, God. I guess not.

“How about telling me what the hell happened?” the other woman burst out. “The last time we spoke, you were talking like a man completely in love with his future wife.”

“At that time, I wasn’t—”

“You didn’t know it then,” the still-unknown woman cut Valerian off, “but trust me, you were. And that was the only reason why I agreed to help you out with your wedding and all the other things you wanted done in secret. But now you’re telling me you want all of those contracts invalidated? Why?”

“Because she’s no longer my wife.”

Silence.

“Yes, it’s exactly what you think.”

The heaviness in Valerian’s tone made Poppy wrap her arms around herself for some reason.

“I fucked up, Charlotte. Big time.”

Poppy finally had a name for the other woman, and other memories started trickling in. Charlotte. The woman he had asked help from, in the event the trouble in Risto resulted in Valerian’s...death.

“And with everything in Risto still up in the air, I don’t have any time to waste. I need you to make the necessary adjustments. The offshore accounts should be under Poppy’s maiden name, and she can have full access—”

But Charlotte was interrupting him again. “You obviously still love her. So why don’t you just ask for her forgiveness—”

“Because I don’t deserve to.”

“It can’t be as bad—”

“Didn’t you hear me say I fucked up?” Valerian exploded. “It wasn’t any lie. It was the truth. You remember what I told you about Camelia? How she was still another man’s mistress when we first met, and how she invested that man’s money in my company? What I never fucking told you was that I had always known the truth. From the very start. I just pretended I didn’t for the sake of my pride. I pretended to be blind because I had no fucking choice. But I also swore to myself that it would be the last time my woman would feel the need to save me with another man’s money.”

“I’m sorry, Valerian—”

“You haven’t even heard the worst part yet. When news of Risto’s political unrest broke out, Camelia wanted to ask her ex-lover again for money. She would rather whore herself out instead of trusting me. So I broke up with her and ended up with Poppy. Who I didn’t plan to fall in love with, but I did. And it was unbelievably good between us, Charlotte. She was the angel I never deserved until she told me she knew of a man who wanted to help me. It was like the fucking past all over again—”

“Who was the other man?” Charlotte asked.

“I thought it was Misha Grachyov.”

Poppy’s lips parted in shock.

“I went out of my way to destroy Poppy afterward. Anything to keep her from realizing she had broken my heart.”

“And that was how you...fucked up?”

“I told you it gets worse,” Valerian said hollowly. “It was only when she was already gone that I found out the other man she was talking about was my own grandfather.”

---