“You did something,” I maintained.
“A small something,” she countered. “Really small. Teeny-tiny, actually.”
“What did you do?”
“Devvie …”
“Now.”
“It was your mother’s idea.” She dug her fingernails into her fists, looking unbearably embarrassed, her cheek turned in my direction. She couldn’t meet my gaze.
“What did you do?” I asked for the millionth time.
“I can’t tell you. You’ll hate me.”
“Too late. Already there. Now, for the last time, before I make you regret the day you were born—what happened between this morning and this evening to inspire my girlfriend to leave me?”
All the air was sucked from the room in the moment before her confession.
“I paid her.”
It was out in the open now. The admission.
And once it was out, Louisa proceeded, gingerly throwing another crumb of information.
“It’s Ursula, Devvie. She was relentless. Completely unhinged. Time is ticking. She got nervous … gutted, really … and …” She shook her head frantically, reaching for my face. I threw her hands away.
“And?”
“And she wrote her a one-million-dollar check.”
“Fucking hell.”
“And Emmabelle took it,” Louisa added desperately, her small fists balling around the fabric of my dress shirt. “She took the check, Devon. What does it say about her? She doesn’t love you. Doesn’t need you. Doesn’t see you. I ache for you every day.”
She spoke the words to my shirt, unable to look at me when she said them.
“You’re my first and last thought. You’re always in the back of my mind. Loving you is like breathing. It’s compulsive. Let me love you. Please. Just give me a chance, and I’ll be everything you need me to be.”
“You can’t be everything I need you to be.” I stepped backward, letting her stumble a little before gaining her composure. “Because you’re not the woman I love.”
Her eyes were big and full of tears. I walked over to a small dining table, picked up her phone, and handed it over to her.
“Now you’re going to call and tell your pilot that’s on standby that you will be leaving tonight. Go back to England. You will never set foot in Boston again. Not as long as I’m alive. And if you ever come back—”
I paused, thinking about it. Louisa’s face was now marred with makeup and tears. A concoction that gave her a slightly comical look, like she was a long-lost Cradle of Filth member.
It didn’t feel good or right, crushing her like that, but I had no choice. “Darling,” I gathered her arms in mine, my voice dropping to a whisper. “I’m never going to marry you. Not in this lifetime and not the next. With or without Emmabelle in the picture, I’m an all or nothing kind of bloke. With her, I want it all. With you …” I let her complete the sentence in her head, before adding, “If you try to tamper with my relationship with my girlfriend—and she is still my girlfriend, make no mistake about it, even if she doesn’t know it yet—I will ensure your family and legacy are both destroyed. I will ensure everyone knows Byron has demolished a historical church so he can place his side piece within a stone’s throw of his countryside estate. The money he paid Parliament Member Don Dainty under the table to promote favorable tax laws would be revealed, and let us not forget your dear brother Benedict has a particular taste for underage girls. Your family is corrupted through the nose, and I am willing to unveil every piece of wrongdoing it has done over the years if you don’t give me your word here and now that you are going to stop this.”
All this dirt, courtesy of Sam Brennan and his detective work. Maybe he was worth some of his fee after all.
I could tell it sank in this time around.
That it hit her real and hard. In the same place it hit me, the day I knew my father didn’t love me. Although now, it seemed like my entire family didn’t love me.
Mum had betrayed me too.
Outwardly, nothing changed. Louisa was still the same Louisa. Willowy and delicate, a perfect, stainless feather in the wind. But her eyes turned from glossy to dull. Her mouth became rigid. The twinkle behind her irises was gone.
“Answer me with words,” I said softly, using my hand to gently pry her jaw open. The words fell from between her lips like they were on the tip of them, just waiting to be said.
“I understand you never want to see me again, Devon.”