Page 28 of Legacy of His Revenge
‘I played right into your hands with that accident, didn’t I?’ Her voice was stilted but despair, as toxic as acid, was filling every corner of her. ‘You don’t care a jot thatInever hurt your family.’ She wasn’t going to try and explain anything about Eric to him now, nothing at all, and she hated herself for allowing him to get so close, close enough for her to have been tempted to open up about her beloved brother. This ruthless, unfeeling man in front of her wouldn’t even care. ‘Did you even fancy me?’ Tears stung the backs of her eyes. She was asking questions and she didn’t want to know the answers but she couldn’t help herself.
Matias flushed darkly. It pained him to see the wounded hurt in her eyes but he wasn’t going to be sidetracked by that. This time he was going to stick to the brief. No way was he going to let her swing the tables round and cast him in the role of the criminal. She’d been after money and that was the long and short of it, end of story.
‘I should have stopped to ask myself why a man like you would have looked twice at me,’ Sophie continued bitterly.
‘Can you deny,’ Matias intoned coldly, ‘that you wanted me to pour money into your father’s company because you knew that, if I did, some of it would inevitably come your way?’
Sophie closed her eyes.
She had needed that money but she would die before she explained it to him now. Instead she had to accept that she had been a tool to be exploited by him in his search for revenge. They hadn’t been getting closer. That had all been in her stupid mind because he hated her for a crime she hadn’t committed.
Matias noted that she couldn’t even meet his eyes and he bunched his fists, resisting the urge to punch something very, very hard. He was uncomfortable in his own skin and that enraged him. He moved to the door, remained there for a few seconds, his body deathly still and yet seeming to exude a savage, restless energy.
‘Our return to London will mark the end of any relationship between us.’
‘But what about the money I still owe you?’ Panicked, she licked her lips nervously.
‘Do you honestly think that I would want to set eyes on you ever again, Sophie?’
Tears gathered at the backs of her eyes and she swallowed painfully, not wanting to cry in front of him but fearing that she would. Her heart was thundering inside her and her head was beginning to hurt.
‘You’re going to take my company away from me,’ she said flatly. ‘You don’t care who you hurt in your desire for revenge. It doesn’t matter that I had nothing to do with whatever my father did to your father.’
Matias’s jaw clenched. His eyes drifted down from her defiant heart-shaped face to the body he had so recently taken and he was furious that, in defiance of the hostile atmosphere simmering between them, his body was still insisting on responding to hers with unbridled gusto.
He harshly reminded himself that whatever she trotted out, nothing could excuse the fact that she had tried to encourage him to open dealings with her father because she’d wanted his money. Whatever guise it took, the apple never fell far from the tree. Greed was in her blood and nothing else mattered.
‘Consider the debt to me paid in full,’ he gritted. ‘I won’t be going after your company so you can breathe a sigh of relief. I walk through this door and all dealings between us, as I’ve said, come to an end. I will instruct my secretary to email you confirming that you no longer owe me anything for the damage to my car and you should consider yourself fortunate, because there are no limits for me when it comes to getting justice for what your father did to mine. In life, there is always collateral damage.’
Being referred to ascollateral damagejust about said it all, Sophie thought, devastated. Thank goodness, she hadn’t confided in him about Eric. Thank goodness she hadn’t allowed him even further into her heart.
‘I shall go and pack my stuff up and then I think I’ll get a taxi to the station and take the first train back to London.’
‘My driver will deliver you to your house. In the meantime, I have ignored work demands because of certaindistractions.’ His mouth curled into a sardonic smile. ‘It’s time for me to return to normality and not a moment too soon.’
Every word that passed his beautiful mouth was a dagger deep into the core of her but, no, she wasn’t going to break down in front of him. She wasn’t going to let him see how far he had already burrowed into her.
She nodded curtly and remained where she was as he turned his back on her and walked out of the kitchen.
Then and only then did her whole body sag, like a puppet whose strings had been abruptly cut.
But only for a few minutes, a few minutes during which she breathed deeply and did her best to find the silver lining in the cloud. It was what she had spent a lifetime doing. She’d done it every time she visited her brother and reminded herself that life with him in it, however damaged he was, was so much better than life without him in it. She’d done it every time she’d gone to her father, cap in hand, to beg for the money needed to keep Eric safe and happy, and left with the cash.
She would do it again now, and she would thank her lucky stars that she hadn’t had the opportunity to emotionally invest even further in a guy who’d used her. And she’d thank her lucky stars that her debt to him was repaid in full.
But, as she got ready to leave, flinging her possessions in the case she had brought with her, her heart was still telling her that life was never going to be the same again.
