Page 72 of The Bourbon Bride

She ends her call, setting her phone back on the island with shaking hands and staring at it for a moment. When she drags her gaze back to me, I’m still not ready for the look of complete and utter anguish the clear green reflects at me.

“Paige—“

She cuts me off with a hand lifted between us and three heartbroken words.

“How could you?”

twenty-nine

Paige

Iwasused.

Once again, my sole value was simply in my connections and family legacy. I’m a pawn in a bigger game that doesn’t care about my heart, my feelings, or the wreckage that is left behind once my usefulness is expended. The worst part is, I willingly fell for everything Hayes offered, without once questioning his motives in helping me flee the arranged marriage of my overbearing parents’ making. If he hadn’t considered marrying me for the hotels before I brought the idea to his very doorstep, he certainly ran with it after.

I’m so stupid.

My head swims with the realization as I hold on to the island for support, but it’s the shattering of my freely-given heart that causes the most pain. I feel it in my very bones, a splintering, sharp pang that echoes and catches as I breathe. This is heartbreak, and my naïveté brought it on myself.

“How could you?” I ask again, wishing my voice were full of rage and anger, when it’s actually defeated and weak. “You bought my family’s hotels, took away the only future I’ve known, and dismantled a family legacy over a century old in a matter of days. For what, exactly? What do you stand to make of it? What profit margin could you squeeze out of a small chain like Xenios?”

“Baby, please. Let me explain.”

Hayes pinches his temples with his thumb and forefinger before he stands and moves toward me, but I back away. I don’t like hearing him call me baby when I’m spiraling, my world crumbling below me.

“You never even considered telling me you had this planned? That maybe I would have liked to know your sights were set on owning more than my heart?”

I shut my eyes tight against the welling tears. I will not shed a single one for this imposter who used me just like everyone else has wanted to.

“No, that was probably your plan all along. Get the heiress to fall in love with you so you’d have an easier time convincing her daddy to go through with the deal.”

I turn my back on him and wrack my brain for what I can do now. I spin and brush past him to get to my pants, his hands skimming my arms. I twist my body so he won’t touch me and shove my feet into my jeans with more force than is required.

“You don’t understand. I’ll explain everything. You just have to listen to me.”

“How long have you wanted to buy out the hotels? Did you have plans in place before you met me? How about when you took me back to Atlanta with you, did you think it was all too convenient? You owe me that bit of truth.”

He freezes and considers me like I’m an unpredictable wild animal.

“I… may have had ulterior motives in the beginning.”

His halting cadence tells me he is considering not telling me the truth. The lines around his eyes grow deeper with the strain of his admission.Great.

“But it wasn’t about taking anything from you. I just wanted to get to know you.”

“Oh, good job convincing me of your hero qualities when you actually are just the villain who takes what he wants, when he wants it. I really should have taken you at your word. I’m so naive.”

He told me exactly who he was from the beginning. I thought he would be different for me. I thought that I could change him in some fundamental way that would make the bad guy good. I’m a stupid idiot for being that short-sighted and delusional and it took him dismantling something I’ve wanted forever in such a devastating way to finally see him for what he is.

A liar and a thief.

He rakes a hand through his thick hair and scans the space before his eyes lock on the refrigerator. “I have ice cream. Let’s table this discussion and maybe after you’ve had something to eat, and calmed down, you’ll actually listen to me.”

I spin on my heel as I button my pants, my eyes narrowing. He has some nerve.

“You thinkice creamis going to fix this lie of a life I signed up for and make me understand your heartless manipulation? I may be a silly debutante, but even I’m not that stupid.”

I grab my phone off the island and shove it roughly into my purse. Seeing the new phone reminds me of every lie he told me about protecting me, about wanting to be betterfor me.

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