Fuck, how is he going to feel when he finds out?
“I was desperate,” Blair sobs, and the tears begin to fall again. Dropping one hand, I grab the tissues from the table and offer her the box, my heart clenching at the gratefulness in her eyes as she takes them.
“Desperation is no excuse.”
“I was though! I was desperate and so angry at him,” she cries, sniffling into the tissue. “I knew he would never see me. He would never talk to me either, that was clear the first time I saw him again. Then when you came to see me about him I thought I could drive you apart. I knew he desired a family but it was so quietly hidden that no one knew. So getting you out of the picture and… and using that to get back in seemed like the strongest plan.”
An irritable sigh from Archer pulls my attention for a moment as he stares at his phone, dials a number, and presses it to his ear.
“Getting in was all I had to do,” Blair continues, her voice thick and wet. “Then the Russians would get an assassin in to kill Sienna and Dante and anyone else they wanted and I relished the idea of that because I was cast aside and forgotten. But the longer things went on and the more he pushed me away the more I realised I was caught in this lie and I just… I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Because you only wanted power,” I snarl, the heat of my anger seeping into my words. “Your failure to slip into the Italian hierarchy should have been a hint at how fucked up your plans are.”
Blair dissolves into water, weeping into her tissues and I take several steps back as every muscle coils tight with the desire to slap the stupidity out of her.
She gets with Killian, cheats on him with Dante to try and get into Italian power then has the gall to be angry when they want nothing to do with her?
Lord give me strength.
“Pull yourself together,” I mutter bitterly. Blair sniffles, drawing herself up straight on the couch as she tries to do just that.
“I still care for him, you know,” she mumbles underneath the tissues. “It wasn’t supposed to be all this bad. I would have gone all the way, married him and everything. Sure there was some revenge for Dante rejecting me but I would have supported Killian and been there when—”
“When you helped kill hisfamily?” I scoff. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Is she seriously trying to reason this as romantic? “You, what, would have been his shoulder to cry on when Dante and Sienna were dead? You think he’d just lie down and let that happen!?”
“It’s not like that!” Blair retorts.
“If you knew himat all,” I grind out as heat rushes up my throat, my heart beating furiously in my chest. “You would know that you could have come to him andtoldhim about the Russians. Nothing matters to him more than family, he would have helped you if you’d told him the truth.”
Blair scoffs and turns angry, wet eyes up to me as she swipes her tongue over her swollen lips, catching some stray tears.
“He never treated me well, how could I know that!” she exclaims. “Clearly I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did since he settled for someone like you.”
“It was arranged, dumbass,” I sigh, rolling my eyes painfully.
“Still.” Blair coughs and wipes at her eyes, her makeup long gone in the sea that has washed her face over and over. “You’re like some cheery little church mouse and I was furious,jealousthat someone like you could get in where I failed.”
“Because you’re so much better than me?” I snort and Blair’s look confirms her thoughts.
My stomach flips.
I can’t stand this woman.
“I didn’t cheat, for a start,” I snap, “maybe start with that next time.”
I turn on my heel and stride to the kitchen where Archer steps out of my way. I turn on the coffee pot for nothing more than a distraction and to prevent me from laying another hand on her.
I shouldn’t have slapped her. Even if she deserved it.
Who does she think she is, trying to justify multiple attempts on Killian’s life because she wanted revenge?
Lying about a child?
Does she have no fucking soul!?
It doesn’t escape me though that in truth, I am better than her. And in some sweet twist of fate, my presence in Killian’s life has actually been protecting him all along. Without me, I can’t say for sure but, his desire for a child likely would have pulled him right into Blair’s web without much thought.
Archer touches my elbow, pulling me from my thoughts and the noise of the coffee pot bubbling furiously fills my ears.