Page 52 of Marriage Bargain With Her Brazilian Boss (Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales)

“I told you it was useless, Anushka,” Javi said, his eyes on Caio. “He has turned his back on us a long time ago. It is only you who holds impossible dreams and hopes for him.”

Ire flared in Caio’s depths. “Don’t talk to my wife like that.”

“Why not? The foolish woman thinks the world of you when you can’t even—”

When Caio would’ve punched him in the face, Nush stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Jesus, Caio. Can’t you see that he’s provoking you?” She pressed her forehead into his chest, wrapping her arms around him. “Just give him a chance.”

“You shouldn’t have interfered, Princesa. This is none of your business,” he said, tucking his hands into his pockets and turning away from her. He closed his eyes when he heard her soft gasp. And he had to stiffen himself, stop himself from soothing the hurt.

“Everything that concerns you is my business. This path of destruction you’re on is my business.”

He turned toward her, feeling like a cornered, wounded animal. “Walk away if I’m not good enough for you, Nush. But please, don’t assume to know my pain.”

Nush flinched, and still, she didn’t walk away. “You don’t mean that?”

“Whatever you think this will do, you’re wrong,” he said, gentling his words. “I have had more than a decade to nurse this resentment and anger and pain. Nothing Javier tells me today is going to get rid of it.”

Clasping his face with her hands, Nush pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “This is not a quid pro quo. My promise to you is unconditional. But I can’t see you ripping yourself in half either. Please, Caio, do this for me. I’ve never asked you for anything before.”

She walked away, leaving him feeling alone in the entire world all over again.

Hands tucked into his pockets, Caio turned to his brother. “What’s there for us to discuss, Javi? What can you feel for me after I’ve destroyed your father and brother? Because I won’t take that back for anyone. Carlos and Enzo deserve to rot in jail.”

His brother scowled. “You think I’m here to beg for mercy on their behalf?”

“Or to curse me for ruining them?”

“I know you have had a long time to hate all of us, Caio. And I can’t even blame you for any of it. It took me and Jorge a long time to see Papa’s true nature. It took me a long time to catch up to how Enzo was bullying Jorge right under my nose. The same thing he did to you...”

A feral sound escaped Caio’s mouth but it wasn’t because of the past. It was at the thought of their gentle, quiet, artistic brother Jorge being Enzo’s new victim. He rubbed a hand over his face and found it shaking. “Enzo bullied Jorge?”

Javi nodded after a hard swallow. “I did my best to stop him, to remove Jorge from his presence. I used all the money you kept sending us to protect Jorge.”

“Why didn’t you just leave?” Caio thundered, guilt a fresh thorn under his skin.

For so long, he hadn’t even looked back and now, to realize that he could have put an end to all this, that he could’ve stopped Jorge from being hurt as he had been once.

“You never once looked back,” Javi said, pain and even resentment etched into his own face. “You just left one day, Caio. Without goodbye. Without uttering a word to me or Jorge. And then Mama fell sick. I looked after her while she pined over you. She died of a broken heart, Caio. And all the time, Enzo and Papa kept telling me and Jorge lies about you. Who do you think I’d believe first?”

Caio closed his eyes, a part of him shying away from meeting his brother’s gaze. “I sent you money.”

“And that was the first sign that you even cared about us, the first communication I had from you after years.” A bitter laugh escaped his brother’s throat. “We needed you, Caio. Not your money. When Anushka called,” he said, casting a glance in the direction of the house, “I grabbed the chance to come see you. Jorge didn’t want to but I did.”

“It’s too late to save them, Javi—”

“You think I couldn’t have told Papa that it was you who was masterminding the whole thing from behind the scenes?” Javi shook his head. “I haven’t come here to ask you for anything, Caio. Not for me, not for Jorge, not for Papa. I came to tell you that Mama loved you. That she thought of you every minute, every day after you left. That it broke her heart that she had to let you go.”

“She had a choice, she could have—”

“She had me and Jorge to look after. You think Papa would have let us go with her? Can’t you see this from her point of you, Caio? She did her best by us and by you. Did you know that she called Rao and begged him to give you a new direction?”

Caio felt as if someone had delivered another punch. “She asked Rao?”

Javier nodded. “When he did his monthly checkup, yes. She knew the best thing for you was to leave that toxic environment.” His brother sighed. “I...thought you should know. Jorge and I are your brothers, your family. She’d have wanted me to take this step. She’d have...”

His brother broke off, overwhelmed with emotion and left without another word.

Caio stayed by the pool long after darkness swallowed his shadows, wondering at how much his revenge had robbed from him. How much he had willingly lost. How many years he could have had with two brothers.

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