He looked like he was almost hoping she could explain the pictures, but that had to be a trick of the lighting. He didn’t care. He’d wanted to marry her in order to make his business bigger. Even his mom had gotten it right, while Ellie had lived in dumb ignorance. Enough was never enough for Sandor and his company would always come first. Just like her father.
“I think you are contemptible.”
That seemed to rock him back on his proverbial heels. “What the hell did you just say to me?”
“You lied to me. You said you wanted me, but all you wanted was my dad’s company.”
“You think to use this to justify your behavior?”
“No. I don’t have to justify my behavior and yours is irredeemable. Get out of my apartment, Sandor, and don’t come back. Ever.”
He didn’t move. “Ellie…”
“Stop talking and leave.” Too much was going through her mind. Too much pain. Too many surprises. Terror that all she had believed about life and herself was one big deception.
“At least tell me why you went to him. Was he an old lover…was it a last fling?”
“I don’t owe you any explanations.”
“You came home prepared to marry me.”
“Yes, more the fool me.”
“Ellie, make me understand.”
She stared at him. The words felt like a plea from the heart, but he didn’t have a heart. He only really cared about his company, about proving he was bigger and better than his father. He didn’t care about her. His deal with her dad and the fact he had not told her about it proved that.
“You said you couldn’t hide truth from your mother.”
“It is not the same.”
“Patently. You love her and I am nothing more than a pawn my father and you have played between you. I could hate you, Sandor. I really think I could hate you.”
He laughed harshly. “One of the things I found so intriguing about you is how much we had in common. Even to this. I could hate you, too, Ellie.”
“Go away, Sandor.” Hot tears burned her eyes. She blinked furiously, determined not to let them fall while he was still in her apartment. “I don’t want you here. Not ever again.”
He stood, a flash of weary pain sparking in his eyes before it disappeared to be replaced by that glacial cool he’d worn upon entering her home. “And I do not want to be here. It seems we both made a mistake believing we could trust the other.”
“Yes.” Her voice cracked on the single word.
Sandor stopped on his path across the hardwood floor, but then he straightened his shoulders and kept going.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ELLIE WANTED TOscream out in pain.
She’d felt this way once before and promised herself she’d never let herself be used again. She’d failed and it hurt. It hurt so much, she didn’t know if she could keep the pain inside like she had the last time. It was too big. Too deep.
But then her love for Sandor was so much more intense than what she’d felt at nineteen, the two feelings did not even compare. She felt like there was a steel band around her chest and it was contracting.
She couldn’t deal with it. It was too much. But there was nothing there…no one to help her through the pain. Nothing to blunt its shattering intensity.
Then her gaze slid to the pictures spread out on her coffee table. The truth. She had to learn the truth.
She grabbed the fax cover sheet and stumbled to the phone. Blinking away tears, she read the number listed for the agency’s landline. There were offices all over the world according to the stationery, but the one that had generated this fax was in New York. Her fingers were clumsy and she had to redial twice before she got the number right.
The sender, a person named Hawk, no last name given, was not in the office. She left her name and both cell and home numbers with the answering service, requesting he call her immediately. She told the service it was an emergency.
In her mind, it was.
She couldn’t let herself dwell on Sandor’s betrayal. She heard you could not die from a broken heart, but you could not tell that by the way she felt. She couldn’t afford to let the wound inside her grow. She had to contain it, lock it away with all the other pain of past rejection.
Desperation clawed through her as the agony threatened to shred her. She picked up the pictures and rushed to the computer, determined to research what she could. Anything to keep her brain occupied with something besides her bleeding heart.
She started with the article in the tabloid. Hawk had efficiently supplied the name of the weekly along with the page the article had been found on. She found the paper online. It was a Spanish tabloid, but since she was fluent in the language, that wasn’t a problem for her.