‘I want to show him that he’s lost, and I have it all. His company, and especially what he tried to keep from me. You.’
Eve scrambled to her feet. ‘So I’m still being used as a weapon?’
She was talking in riddles.
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘There’s a future that holds love, not this hatred.’ She clasped her hands in front of her. ‘My father will reap his reward. There’s nothing you can do to him that will make him unhappier than he is now, than he has been for most of his adult life.’
He shook his head, unbelieving. How she could even acknowledge Hugo after all that had gone before was unfathomable. ‘You’re protecting him?’
She shook her head, eyes wide. ‘I’m protecting you. That’s why I won’t let you go.’
‘You can’t stop me.’ He snatched his phone from his pocket, called for a car. ‘Tell me where he is, or I’ll find him on my own. He’ll know what he did!’
His ride would be here in under ten minutes. So little time and too much, when he wanted to rush out and tear her father’s world apart, like he’d done to theirs. Gage paced the carpet, unable to stop because if he did, he feared he might fall and never get up. Eve didn’t move. How could she be so still? With her arms now wrapped tightly around her waist, biting into her lower lip. Then she reached out, grabbed his arm and he had no choice but to stand there, forcing himself to stay upright.
‘Gage, please.’ Eve’s grip was tight and strong for such slender fingers, her voice a bare tremor in the otherwise brutal silence of the room. ‘You can’t go... There are things you need to know... The truth of why I ended...us.’
The answer to the questions he’d asked for seven years hung just out of reach. Now nothing would get him to move from the spot in which he stood. Yet Eve seemed frozen, her eyes wide and pupils mere pinpricks. A pulse thrashed wildly at the base of her throat, as if they were on the edge of something too big to be knowable.
If anyone were to break the inertia, it would have to be him.
‘What?’
The word jolted like a shock through Eve. She pulled her hand back as if he’d burned her. Now she was the one to pace, hands fluttering restlessly as she spoke.
‘You’ve got to understand. At the time he said things were bad with Caron and that if he told everyone what he knew, it might fold. You love your parents. I didn’t want you hurt like that.’
And still she didn’t make sense. None of this did, her defence of Hugo. Nothing. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I can’t... I have to...’ She stopped. Her chest heaved as if every breath was an effort. Her eyes spilled over with tears. He almost moved to hold her up, because now it was as if she was the one who might fall. ‘You need to know. Your father... Gus...is not your father.’
Everything froze, like the room had been hit by an ice storm.
‘Chevaliers are charlatans and cheats, never to be trusted.’
His dad’s words screamed in his ears. Gage shook his head, pointed at her, punctuating the air with his finger.
‘No. You’re lying.’ Eve reared back like she’d been struck. ‘It’s not true. It’s—’
‘You need to talk to your mom and dad. Why would I lie?’ Her hands were stretched out, as if imploring him to believe her when what she said was unbelievable. ‘I’ve seen the evidence. My father said if I didn’t end things, he’d tell everyone you weren’t Gus’s son. Better you hated me than you lost everything. I had to do it. To protect you.’
Gage shook his head. It couldn’t be true. He was a Caron. Gus was his dad.
‘Doesn’t wash, cher. How were you going to explain us to your daddy now? That promise you demanded he keep was worthless with us together.’
Though only hours ago if Eve had told him she’d had a baby, he might not have believed that either...
‘I thought we’d be done by the time my father recovered, if he did... Then things changed...’ She tortured the sapphire ring on her finger, twisting it back and forth. Staring at the gleaming gems. It hit him so hard it felt like the breath had been almost knocked from his lungs. Those questions he’d asked of his parents when he’d been a child. How he didn’t really look like his dad. The dread of realisation frosted over him because in the end, here was the perfect explanation for Eve’s cruelty, the only one that made sense.
He’d been going to confront her father, and Eve knew Hugo would tell him what she’d kept hidden all these years.
Gus Caron was not his father.
That knowledge now fired the burn inside, a blinding realisation of all the lies told and toxic secrets kept.
‘If your daddy had died you’d have kept this secret, wouldn’t you?’ he hissed. ‘When I deserved to know.’