Page 17 of A Convenient Ring to Claim Her

He snapped his head back, shocked to discover what a heart-punch that was. He was deeply insulted by her icy declaration. “Because I told the truth to a museum curator?”

“Because you throw people away. Go ahead and toss me.” She touched her breastbone. “I get that. I never meant anything to you in the first place, but Eden is yoursister. Do you know what I would do to have one of those?”

The break in her voice cracked against his eardrum. She was blinking fast, chest rising and falling as though she had run all the way from Vienna to confront him here.

“I guess you’re so rich, you can afford to throw away one and get another when it suits you.” The profound contempt in her bitter words left a pall in the back of his throat.

“Don’t make this about Eden,” he scoffed as she started to turn away. “You betrayed my confidence. Own it.”

“You—!” She spun around and pierced holes through him with her icicle gaze. Her whole body was visibly shaking.

For a split second, he had the sense she was going to say something that... Hell, he didn’t know what was about to happen, but he was facing a deadly creature right now, the kind that would strike with poisonous venom or charge and run him through.

He held his breath, tense and waiting, but her voice was eerily calm when she spoke.

“You want to make this about us? Fine. I knew you would find it hard to forgive me. It was a test and youfailed. More than that, the way you’re treating Eden tells me I was right to never envision a future with you. If you can cut your own sister out of your life so heartlessly, what chance would I have had? I did us both a favor, Micah. Say ‘thank you.’”

A strangled laugh hit his throat even as she flung open the study door and slammed it behind her.

In two steps, he had his hand on the door latch, but he could already hear the front door opening and closing.

He swore and let his hand fall to his side, not bothering to chase her. What was the point? To insist she was wrong? That he hadn’t cut Eden out of his life? He hadn’t.

But he was being a stubborn ass toward his sister, avoiding her calls.

What was his alternative, though? Let her try to convince him she’d made the right decision in marrying a man he hated? Invite them into his home and start going on family vacations with them?

He wanted to believe he was taking time to cool down, but he wasn’t coming around to the idea. On the contrary, he was clinging to his anger, returning again and again to betrayal and blame because it felt familiar if not good.

It was a test and you failed.

Why the hell did Quinn have to be right? God, she infuriated him when she called him out on his own intransigence.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, starting to see the gauntlet he’d thrown down when he had told the curator that he couldn’t vouch for her. He had wanted this confrontation, but Quinn had picked up his tin glove and slapped him across the face with it.

If you can cut her out of your life so heartlessly, what chance would I have had?

Did shewanta chance? If she did, that was news to him because she’d always been very adamant that she had other places to be that were anywhere except with him.

“Signore?” His housekeeper tentatively tapped on the door, breaking into his brooding. “The chauffeur has pulled the car around. He’s ready when you are.”

The dinner party. Micah bit back a weary curse. His aunt worked the levers of society with cold-blooded alacrity, always looking after her own interests, but those included ensuring the Gould side of his family thrived, so she was occasionally useful.

Micah had agreed to meet her grandson-in-law, whom she wanted him to hire into an executive position despite the young man still being wet behind the ears. Micah suspected she would thrust a potential wife under his nose again, the niece or daughter of someone whose favor she wanted to curry. There would be the usual shop talk about a property or project she thought he should consider and she would have opinions on Eden’s recent marriage, not that he had any desire to hear them.

It would all be addressed in the space of two hours and served up with a pleasing menu and a carefully chosen flight of wines. She was an efficient and attentive hostess, but those were the nicest things he could say about her.

He shrugged on his jacket and walked outside to his car. The late-day sun was sinking, throwing long shadows. The soft breeze carried the sounds and smells of summer—dry grass and motors on the lake and the distant wail of an ambulance siren.

It all vanished as his driver sealed him into the capsule of the car. Moments later, they crept up the lane and joined the traffic jam on the main road.

The congestion was normal at this time of evening. Micah took out his phone, half thinking to call Eden, but he wanted more time and privacy when he did.

He rolled the edge of his phone against his thigh, corner to corner to corner, pondering how they could get past something that might not be unforgivable, but it was incomprehensible. To him, at least.

Damn Quinn for making him feel so guilty about this!

“I think there was an accident, sir,” his driver said. “I see the ambulance is there. Shouldn’t be long now.”

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