The Deception (Filthy Rich Americans 3)

When the phone vibrated, I nearly dropped it to the deck below but managed to hang on. I unlocked the screen and blinked in confusion. What was I looking at? I rotated the phone to landscape and zoomed in. It was a $100,000 check issued to Dr. Brandon Galliat from RMH Industries, LLC—for consulting work, according to the memo field.

I started typing a response to ask what I was looking at, but Macalister’s next reply rolled in.

Macalister: RMH is one of the shell corporations Royce uses to buy stock.

My stomach twisted in knots. Even before I read the next line, I knew he was telling the truth.

Macalister: It’s his initials.

It was fresh in my memory, since four days ago I had become Mrs. Royce Macalister Hale.

I peered at the screen capture for a long time, willing the letters to change and make it untrue. I tried to make sense of it. What kind of consulting would Royce’s sham company need from a psychology professor from an all-women’s college?

I threw open the sliding door so hard, it slammed against the track stop, and Royce stirred. He blinked his bleary eyes at me when I clicked on the overhead lights.

“Wake up,” I snapped.

He could tell by my tone something was seriously wrong, and he bolted upright, coming fully awake in an instant. The covers were gathered around his waist, and he pushed them down so he could stand, wearing just a pair of underwear. He gazed at me from the other side of the bed, taking in the short silk nightgown I wore and the cold fury burning on my face.

“What’s wrong?” He couldn’t have sounded more worried if he’d tried.

“Tell me again about Dr. Galliat and how you don’t have a relationship with him.”

His shoulders pulled back, and his shields went up. “Marist, what on earth?”

“Why did RMH Industries cut him a check for a hundred grand?”

It took a moment for the gravity of my question to sink in, and it was like I’d shot him. Royce’s knees folded, and he sat at the edge of the bed, no longer able to look at me. He let out an enormous sigh. “I lied to you.”

“No, fucking, shit. Tell me what the money was for.” I prayed I was wrong, that it was just a terrible coincidence.

Royce leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. “I had to be sure. My dad had such a hard-on for me marrying Emily.” He scrubbed his face, turned his head, and gave me a devastating look. “I didn’t want her. I wanted you.”

He wasn’t going to say it, so I did it for him. “You paid him to get her pregnant.”

His guilty expression confirmed it. “Sophia found out who she was dating, and it wasn’t hard to convince him. If it worked, I promised him I’d look after her.”

For a split second, I considered telling him his money had been wasted. Emily had confessed to me the night of the initiation she’d wanted to avoid the Hales so badly, she’d tried to get pregnant herself.

But if I told Royce that, it would be like letting him off the hook, and he’d done a terrible thing. He was a true Olympian god now, meddling with the mortal world and not caring what havoc it caused.

“You fucked with her life,” I cried. “Do you get that? You changed the course of it forever. And she almost fucking died. For what?”

He rose and faced me directly, and his eyes were two cauldrons over the fires of war. “So you could be my wife!”

I stared at him with total disbelief.

His swift, deliberate footsteps brought him closer until we were chest to chest. “Everything I have done—every fucking move I made—was to bring us together. I’m sorry I lied to you. It’s not an excuse, but I was ashamed, and I knew if I told you, you’d look at me exactly the way you are right now.”

He jammed a hand in his messy hair and stared off into the distance, trying to organize the thoughts in his head. “I warned you before this was all over, you might think I was worse than my father.”

“Don’t you dare try to—”

He was determined to finish. “I’m sorry your sister was part of my contingency plan, but I was desperate by then and out of options. I’m not proud of what I did, but—shit—I had to do it. It was win at all costs.” His hands were rough around my waist, hauling me up against him. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I had to, Marist. As long as I got you in the end.”

My heart split in two. One half swelled at hearing his declaration, and the other wanted to stomp all over it. I pushed against his bare chest, but he didn’t move, and it made me stumble back a step.