I didn’t expect anything from him and yet, if I was being completely honest with myself, Iwasdisappointed.
I knew after the way Ethan depicted his brother and after the way he’d humiliated me that I shouldn't have expected any affirmative reaction from Hugo, but I still allowed myself to grasp at the tiniest bit of hope that he would think differently once he came here tonight.
I snorted. What did I want him to do anyway? Jump for joy at the news that I was pregnant with his child? Get down on one knee and ask me to marry him? That would have made even more of a mess with his parents.
They would see me as the queen of trollops, cheating on Ethan with his brother and having his child.
This was real life; it was sheer trash and nowhere near the romantic comedy movies I eagerly watched on Netflix.
I needed to figure everything out and fast, and I needed to do that in a safe and loving environment. I needed to feel soothed instead of stressed and pressured and there was only one way for me to do that.
I needed to go home.
Chapter 9
Hugo
Ireadthesameline of the acquisition contract I was reviewing for the third time in a row and let out a growl of frustration before removing my glasses and scrubbing a hand across my face.
Work seemed unachievable today after the mess I made last night with Ava. Well, it was her fault really for being unreasonably stubborn! I went there with good intentions.
You wanted to fuck her again, Hugo,my mind chastised.
Yes, I did, but I meant well—it would have made us both very satisfied. She had to go and do the worst possible thing and laugh at me.
It made me angry because it touched my ego, and no woman had ever managed to do that before.
What did she even mean she said that she didn’t want me to be the father of her child? Like I was not a catch. I was a St-John, I was rich, smart, and good looking! Her child was fucking blessed to have my genes.
I snorted, leaning back in my seat. I thought I’d be able to just walk away last night because it was what she wanted, and every man who never wanted a child dreams of being let go without responsibilities or the feeling of being a monster. Yet there was that little nagging feeling, quite akin to guilt, settling in the center of my chest since I closed the door of what she calls an apartment behind me.
Frankly, this newfound guilt was misplaced in this situation. It was her fault; she’d said she was safe.Yes, but you could have wrapped it up,Ethan's voice chimed in my head. And miss her tight, soft heat? That would have been the real crime here.
I leaned forward and grabbed a pen, tapping it on the brown leather-bound folder on my desk. It was all the information I’d obtained on the saintly Ava Byrnes before I even came back to England.
They say “know your enemy” and that had been my motto since I was a little boy, even forgetting that some of them had not been enemies at all—I had only treated them as such, like my little brother. It was much too late now; we were way past mending whatever relationship we could have had.
I wanted ammunition against her, proof that she was just as venal as I thought she was, proof that whatever I was planning to do to her had been coming her way.
I set off with good intentions, I really did. I wanted to protect our name, our legacy, our patrimony, our family, and more particularly, my brother. There were many factors, probably even in that specific order.
However, the more I realized how deeply this wicked witch had cursed me, the more my intentions switched from laudable to objectionable when I started to plan to use whatever dirt I could uncover to coax her to her knees once more, just to break the spell and satisfy a longing I had no need for.
“What did you do to her?”
I looked up sharply, trying to keep my face void of emotion at Ethan’s surprise appearance in my office.
I didn’t even remember the last time my little brother had ever sought me out, or of him even stepping foot in our London tower.
“Ethan St-John in Canary Wharf?” I smirked. “Are you lost, little brother?”
He huffed and his cheeks flushed with anger. He had always been so easy to both read and rail.
“I’d rather be anywhere else.”
Fuck, that one stung. “No offense taken, in case you’re wondering.”
“I could notpossiblycare less if you took offense,” he replied and walked in uninvited, closing the door behind him.