Her soft heart cried foul, desperately torn by the hope that he was lying. That her husband had not utterly manipulated her once again. He had arranged the meeting with Loukas to make her hand over her shares? That was a blow too low. That all the while she had been hoping for the future and he had still been held in the past, where vengeance and the need for destruction were his only focus.
‘What kind of monster are you?’
‘The kind your grandmother warned you about. The kind that would steal more than your innocence. A monster made in my grandfather’s image. One who was only ever after the money I could get from Kolikov Holdings’ liquidation—a small compensation for the life of my mother. One who would do whatever it took to get what I wanted. And who is letting you go now that I have what I want.’
Unaccountably, images from their time together rose in her mind. The first time she’d felt as if he were stalking her in the woods, the weight of the red cloak around her shoulders, the glimpse of him smiling at her joy in Fiji, the way he had looked at her when she had asked him to buy her shares, almost with fear, as if he didn’t want her to do that. There was a fervour in him now that she had never seen before. An almost wild determination, as if he were trying to convince her of something too much. Too hard. Money? He’d said it was about money?
She shook her head, hating the way her thoughts, even now, seemed to want to find the good in him. Wanted to find the truth in the lie. Only there were so many lies and so many versions of the truth, she simply didn’t know any more.
So, instead of trying to find a way through, she tried for a way out. A way out of the only conclusion Roman was forcing them towards.
‘Look me in the eye and tell me this was just about the shares. That all this time,’ she demanded, ‘it was about destroying the company. When you told me I would have to return to your side. When you told me our child needed its father. When you told me about the loss of your mother. When you lost yourself in my body, when you slept beside me all night long for the first time in years.’
‘Puycalvel is still yours,’ he said, as if completely ignoring her. ‘Everything you came to this marriage with is still yours and yours alone—’
‘Apart from the damn shares—’
Apart from my heart.
‘For which you were paid generously.’
And for a moment she almost thought he’d been talking about her heart too.
‘Have your lawyer look over the paperwork. If you would like to negotiate anything further, I will consider it—’
‘How gracious of you,’ she hissed, the ire taking over her heart and mind now flowing fully in her veins.
‘And you will have full custody—’
‘I would never let my child near you,’ she spat.
‘Da. It is probably for the best.’
She rose jerkily to her feet and stared in confusion at the arm Roman had offered to steady her. Confusion and disdain. She flinched away from it, knocking back the chair, and blindly wound through the tables that now seemed like obstacles to her. Her eyes brimming with tears, some escaping, falling to the floor from her cheeks, felt sore and her heart ached in a way she had never felt before.
It was so much worse than before. So much. Because she had really loved him. She’d been sure of it. Of him. He had asked her to trust him and she had. She had given herself to him and now felt oddly disconnected from everything. Her feelings, her confidence, herself.
His betrayal slashed through her a thousand times as she passed through the iron gates of the restaurant and out onto the bright sunlit Parisian street, as if emerging from some dark horror. She caught the frown of the waiting driver, the stares of passers-by as they took in the sight of what must look like a hysterical woman on the verge of…on the verge of…
‘Ella…’
She refused to turn to look at the man who had hurt her more than anyone else had ever done, she refused to see the stranger staring back at her with nothing more than cold dead eyes, uncaring and unfeeling. She didn’t want to, couldn’t, let that be the last thing she saw of him.
‘Ella,’ he said again, and she felt his hand on her arm, turning her back to him. She closed her eyes, hoping that the next words from his mouth would somehow contradict everything that had just happened. Would somehow explain what had just happened, and take it away. Beg for forgiveness, plead with her.
But when she opened her eyes, all she could see were the two envelopes in his other hand. He pressed them towards her as he looked over her head and told the driver to take her wherever she needed to go.
He finally turned his gaze on her, that cold, painful look in his eyes doing more to damage the fragile threads of any kind of hope in her heart, and said, ‘It was all about the shares, the company, the money. All this time. From the very beginning to the very end, you were only a means to give me what I wanted.’
And as Ella fled from his grasp, into the back of the limousine, Roman realised that he had been wrong. He’d thought he’d known pain. He thought he’d survived the worst
