‘The photographs of us together. You and me.’
‘Someone took photographs?’ Selene felt physically nauseated. The bag slipped from her hand. ‘How could they? This is your home. There were no journalists. Please tell me you’re joking.’
‘I’m not joking.’
‘No—’ She felt the colour drain from her face, felt her fingers grow cold and her body sway. She saw the sudden narrowing of his eyes as he saw the change in her.
‘I don’t see why it would bother you. Nothing else has bothered you. Drinking too much champagne, waking up in my bed, having sex—’
‘That’s different. My father doesn’t know about any of that.’ Or at least she hadn’t thought he did.
‘So this new life of yours only works if your father doesn’t know about it? The first step to independence is standing up for yourself. Just tell your father what you told me. That you want to start living your life. You’re not asking him for money. You’re just telling him how it is.’ There was a tightness around his mouth and a coldness in his eyes. ‘What can he do?’
Selene knew exactly what he could do. And she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to do it.
‘How do you even know there are photographs?’ Please let him be wrong. ‘Show them to me.’
Unsmiling, Stefan reached for his phone and accessed the internet. A few taps of his fingers later he was showing her photographs that snapped the leash on her panic.
‘Oh, no...’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘It’s you and I. Kissing. And it’s a close-up. He’s going to go wild. Who took that photo? Who?’
‘Carys, I suppose.’ The question didn’t appear to interest him much. ‘She writes a gossip column for a glossy magazine and for other places if the story is juicy enough.’
Selene processed that information. ‘But if you know she writes a gossip column then you must have known there was a risk she’d take a photograph—that she’d tell the world about me. You must have known—you...’ Her voice tailed off as her brain finally caught up. ‘Wait a minute. She said something about you being a Machiavellian genius and I had no idea what she meant, but you did know. You did it on purpose. You invited me to the party with the express purpose of upsetting my father.’
‘I invited you to the party because I needed a date and there you were, all vulnerable and sexy mixed in together—it seemed like the perfect solution.’
‘And because you knew it would really upset my father?’
His eyes were cool. ‘Yes, I knew it would upset your father. But presumably so did you. If he’d approved of what you were doing you wouldn’t have had to come to me in the first place.’
‘But I didn’t want him to find out yet. It was so important that he didn’t find out—why do you think I came to you in disguise?’ Realising how naïve she’d been to trust him, Selene took a step backwards, stumbling over his shoes discarded on the floor. ‘You warned me—everyone warned me about you—even Maria—and I didn’t listen.’ Because she hadn’t wanted to. Because she’d spun a fantasy in her head and she’d lived with that fantasy for five years and she wasn’t going to let anyone destroy it because it had been her lifeline. Her hope. Her dream. ‘I thought you were being kind and thoughtful but all the time you were just making sure I came with you so that you could score a point against a business rival.’
His expression was blank. ‘This is not about business. I separate the two.’
But she didn’t believe him. No longer believed in anyone but herself. ‘What sort of a man are you?’
‘A man who isn’t afraid to confront your father—which is why you came to me in the first place. I am exactly the person you knew I was when you walked into my office on that first day.’ He snapped the words. ‘It isn’t my fault if you turned me into some sort of god in your head.’
‘Well, don’t worry. I don’t think that any more.’ She choked on the words. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this. This is worse than anything.’ Because now she was alone. She was on her own. There was no one out there who would help her. No one who cared. Certainly not this man.
‘I’ve done you a favour. Your father will realise you’re serious about wanting your independence. And before you get all sanctimonious can I remind you again that you came to me?’ he said flatly. ‘I didn’t kidnap you, force you into a dress and thrust a glass of champagne in your hand. You were the one who begged me for money and you were pretty much willing to do anything to get it, I might add. If you cast your mind back to your drunken episode my behaviour was impeccable. You did everything you could to seduce me and I said no.’
Humiliation piled onto anger and misery. ‘You’re just a saint.’
‘I never claimed to be a saint. You were the one who came to me in a nun’s outfit with ridiculous expectations.’
She stared at him, mute, seeing the uncomfortable truth in everything he was saying. It had been her decision to come. Her decision to drink champagne. Her decision to kiss him and go to bed with him.
She’d wanted so badly to be able to make her own decisions and all she’d done was make bad ones. Lonely and desperate, she’d built him up in her mind as some sort of perfect being and the truth was a horrible blow.
He’d used her to score points against her father and she was the one who would pay the price. And her mother.
Thinking of it made her limbs shake. ‘You’re right, of course. From now on I’ll be making more careful decisions. And the first will be to stay away from men like you. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You wanted me to be more cynical. Well, now I am. I’m officially cynical.’
His features taut, he stepped towards her. ‘Selene—’
‘Don’t touch me. You only invited me to the party because you knew it would upset him.’