9
Brock
Ispin around to see Goldie in the doorway, her face pale and wreathed in agony. I frantically replay the last minute of our conversation and my heart drops further.Shit.
“Goldie…honey.”
She throws her hands up to halt my forward advance. “Don’t…don’t call me that.” She doesn’t shout it, but it detonates inside me nonetheless.
The vibrant girl I spent the last two days with is gone. In her place is a shocked, pale replica with an agonized look in her eyes.
The expression flays me and I can’t take a breath.
“Goldie…listen. I can explain—”
“No need. I heard everything I needed to.” She casts her father an equally anguished glance before she turns on her heel and hurries down the hall.
I turn to face Fletcher and catch the smug look of satisfaction before he can hide it. I don’t bother to hidemyfury.
“You think you’ve come between us, counsellor? Think how hard I worked to find the evidence on that flash drive to bring you down. Then think of me working a million times harder to take your daughter away from you. You don’t deserve her.”
The smugness vanishes from his face. “You’ll never get my blessing.”
I let another feral smile loose and he flinches. “Oh, you’ll give it, if that becomes a condition of Goldie accepting me.” I point to the flash drive. “My attorney will be in touch in the morning. He’ll let you know a list of my conditions. Meet every one of them and you get to keep a slice of your pathetic life.”
I don’t wait for an answer. My stomach churns with acid as I fly up the stairs back to Goldie’s room.
She’s standing at the window, her back stiff and her head bent.
Every bone in my body yearns to enfold her in my arms, make her pain go away. “Hon—Goldie. Baby, let me explain?”
She shakes her head and continues looking out the window. “You lied to me.”
Her subdued, lifeless voice flays my insides. “No, I didn’t.”
“Well, you didn’t tell me the whole truth. That’s the same thing. You made me think you only wanted to talk to my father and get him to answer your questions. You didn’t say anything about a vendetta to end his career. You came here to destroy him. Don’t bother to deny it.”
My insides twist with fear and panic because she’s right, there’s very little chance of Mark Fletcher climbing any more ambitious ladders once the truth comes out. “I’m sorry, honey. I couldn’t risk him being tipped off.”
She spins around and I see the hurt haunting her eyes and I feel her slipping through my fingers. “You didn’t trust me, you mean?”
The indictment is accurate so I don’t refute it. “I’ve been in prison for the last three years, honey. You learn very quickly that people you thought were friends, aren’t. People you thought you could trust would turn their backs on you on a dime. Trust is…difficult for me.”
“So you came here to threaten my dad, then used me to…to entertain yourself before he got back? Or was I just the convenient tool you used when you saw the opportunity to stick the knife in harder?”
“No! God, don’t talk about yourself like that.”
She laughs, a wretched sound so far removed from the lovely, light original that my insides twist. “You must have been laughing at me the whole time.”
“No. I meant what I said, Goldie. You were a treasure I didn’t expect to find. Not here. And I know this sounds a little insane, but I believe we were meant to be, honey.”
She laughs again and I’m terrified I’ve wrecked her. That she will never laugh that beautiful sound again. “As meant to be as you destroying my father?”
I claw my fingers through my hair. “What happens next is entirely up to him. But I won’t apologize for trying to clear my name, Goldie.”
Surprisingly, she nods, understanding filming her eyes. “I get it, Brock. I do. But you do know that I can never trust you now. You lied and…you…broke my heart.”
My jaw sags as pain smashes my insides to smithereens. “Don’t say that, honey. Please. I can fix this. Let me fix—”