“How can you file for divorce without even talking to me?”
I shoved my hurt to the side and got to the heart of why I brought her here.
“How can you use me—marry me—to steal my family’s company—my mother’s company?”
Apparently, she was getting to the heart of her issues too. Neither of us held back punches. My anger had been directed at her filing for divorce without even giving me a fighting chance. I hated to lose—but I refused to lose a race I never got a chance to run.
But now that I stood there, ready to get answers to my questions, I realized I had to answer hers too. I knew I always would, but I stood there like a kid who stared at a test he never studied for. I had the answers, but they were jumbled and raw. They floated through my head without structure and came with more honest pain than I’d ever shared with anyone.
The discomfort of them had me pulling back—avoiding until I could control the direction.
“Verana…”
“No. No,” she said, crossing her arms and straightening her back. “Don’t you dare stand there like I’m the one who’s in the wrong. You dragged me here. You put me in this position. You did this, Nicholas, so don’t you dare act like me filing for divorce is the issue.”
“It is when you haven’t even talked to me. There are two sides to every story.”
“So, you mean to tell me there is a side that makes this all okay?” she asked, sarcasm and mock-hope dripped from her words. “There’s a side that makes it okay that you used me, lied to me, stole from me? God, Nicholas.” She threw her hands up, laughing without humor. “You made me your accomplice in stealing from me. You conned me into helping you.”
“I never meant for it to go like this. I never sought you out. You just…just appeared like an opportunity I couldn’t turn away from.”
“An opportunity?” she screeched. “I’m a real person. Not some pawn.”
“I know that. But Verana, I never expected you. You asked me why I never settled down, and I told you the truth. I gave every ounce of myself to my work because building my company was my revenge. For over a decade, all I did was focus on getting retribution for my family.”
“So, you took my legacy to avenge yours?”
“Lorenzo was running your legacy into the ground,” I shouted, losing my patience. Yes, I had planned to dismantle Mariano Shipping, but it wasn’t like it wasn’t already going down. “A company that had been running for generations shouldn’t have taken only a few years to take over. If you hadn’t come along, I would have still succeeded within the next five years. All because Mariano Shipping was a sinking ship.”
“No.” She exhaled the word like the truth knocked the wind from her. “No. That’s not true.”
“Why do you think your father was pushing you onto Camden? Because he needed his father’s money to keep the company going. And the contract your grandparents wrote stated that the company needed to be passed down to a man carrying the Mariano name. That’s why your father changed his name when he married your mother. He promised Camden’s father that if he bought into the company, Camden could marry you, and they’d hyphenate the name.”
She shook her head, her beautiful lips pulling down. I wanted to pull her into my arms and soothe her. I hated that she hurt.
“I may have taken the opportunity you gave me, but at least I had something to offer in return. With your father, you would have been trapped with a foul man like Camden. I would have given you freedom.”
“This is not freedom. I’m just another pawn stolen for someone else’s side.”
“Are you saying you would have rather stayed with Camden?”
“I’m saying I would have rather made my own choices.”
“You did make your own choices.”
“Yeah, at what cost? Five years of my life earning it?” She tipped her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “Tell me, Nico. Why five when you only needed a month? Did you want to keep me as a trophy until you were done with me? One up my father’s bad deed by rubbing me in his face?”
“No one forced you to sign,” I growled. I wanted to cover her mouth and tell her she was anything but a simple trophy.
“I signed based on lies. You lied to get what you wanted. Just like my father.”
“Don’t compare me to him,” I warned.
“Why? You used me to get what you wanted. You stole a company from my family because he took yours.”
“He took everything from me,” I bellowed.
She jerked back, and I immediately regretted my loss of control. Taking a deep breath, I shoved past the flare of anger of being compared to Lorenzo. “He didn’t just take my company. He took all my grandpa had left of his family—of his wife. And he did it because he’s a lying, greedy snake. He did it because he played dirty and enjoyed winning for no other reason than he could.”