Public humiliation was a cakewalk compared to losing the regard of people you cared about, she realized, as one man looked at her with pity and the other didn’t meet her gaze at all.
“You’ve always thought I was a gold digger, Travis. Why are you upset to find me exactly where you expected me to be?” she threw out.
“Gwyn,” Vito growled in protest while Travis’s head snapped back.
“When did I ever call you that?”
“The wedding day. You said Mom and I—”
“I barely knew you!” No apology or denial, she noted. He just railed on. “Now I do and you’re as green and idealistic as they come. He’s taking advantage of you, Gwyn.” And he looked genuinely outraged by it. If she wasn’t so furious with him for ruining a good thing, she’d be touched.
“I’m an adult,” she asserted. “Perfectly capable of deciding when and with whom I want a relationship.”
“Oh, tell yourself that, but this isn’t a ‘relationship.’ It’s an arrangement. The most rudimentary kind. He’s miles ahead of you and it’s all calculated for his best interests, not yours. You will come away with some very pretty material items that I know will mean nothing to you because you are a woman looking for love, not lucre. You’re better than this, Gwyn. Don’t let him turn you into something you’re not.”
“You don’t know anything about what we have,” she said hotly, half turning to snag Vito with her glance, urging him—insisting—he defend himself. Them.
His jaw pulsed and he stared at Travis, not with heat, not with guilt. Blank.
It hurt. His silence gutted her and his refusal to appear insulted and furious shook her to the core.
“If you have any decency at all, you’ll send her home with me,” Travis said flatly. “She’s better than this.”
No, I’m not, Gwyn wanted to say. Maybe she even said it aloud. She knew she argued, “That’s a stupid ultimatum. He doesn’t have to prove anything to you. I decide whether I stay with him or not,” she declared.
“Sign the papers when you’re satisfied, not before,” Vito said, more to Travis than to her, reaching to square one of the folders against the edge of the table, then sending a second look, this one blistering, back to Travis again. “You’re wrong about my interfering in this. It’s all been negotiated at arm’s length, but I’ll leave so I’m not a distraction while you finalize it.”
“Vito!” Panic edged into her voice as she watched him circle toward the interior door. This wasn’t really happening was it? “You’re— This isn’t—” Over. Was it? She couldn’t finish the question, afraid she already knew the answer.
He paused, but he didn’t turn around. “This was always going to happen, cara,” he said gently. “You knew that.”
She thought of the day when she’d been prepared to leave and had likened it to tearing off a bandage. But genuinely facing The End was a kind of pain she couldn’t describe, like her soul was wrenched from her body. Her heart beat outside her chest.
She did the only thing she could. She turned on Travis, the man who had marched in here talking like he cared about her and was destroying her life.
“Why would you do this to me? Do you resent me so much for taking some of your father’s precious attention—”
“Gwyn,” Vito said sharply, hand gripping the edge of the table with white knuckles, face grim. “This was always going to happen. Go home with your brother. Let him take care of you. I want to know you’re safe there, not being harassed by the press or anyone else.”
“Oh, do you?” she jeered. “What am I now? Not just a pawn, but a marble that gets picked up and taken home? I decide what happens to me!”
“Do whatever you want,” he commanded. “But you’re not coming home with me.”
He might as well be throwing rocks at the dog that threatened to follow him. His words landed like sharp stones in her throat and her eyes and her glass heart, chipping and cracking it, leaving it in jagged broken pieces as he disappeared through the door and closed it with finality against her.
“Gwyn, I’m sorry,” Travis said, touching her elbow.
She shook him off, distantly supposing she looked like someone had died in front of her because that’s how she felt.
She had been miserable, absolutely devastated, when her nude photos had appeared. Vito had questioned her like a criminal and she had thought her life couldn’t get any worse. Then he’d made everything better. He’d charmed and soothed and ignited her. He had made her fall in love with him. She had trusted him in ways she’d never let herself trust anyone, especially a man. She had offered her heart on a platter, let herself believe he cared for her at least a little...