Was this why he’d been so attentive to Emily? He’d confessed to me once he didn’t care about my family. Had everything he’d done for my sister been out of guilt?
My emotions made my throat raw and sapped the strength from my voice. “Stop telling me what you think I want to hear.”
“I’m not. It’s the truth.”
“How can I believe that? You said we wouldn’t lie to each other—but you did.”
His frame hardened, and the muscle along his jaw ticked. It restrained his biting tone. “Because you’ve been nothing but honest with me, right?”
Oh, no. My gaze plummeted to my toes like it was made of lead.
“Yeah, I thought so.” He sighed. “He’s been dropping comments for months, hinting there was something you weren’t telling me. So, what is it?”
I hugged my arms around myself. Part of me was relieved to finally get the truth out, but I dreaded it too. “Our first night in Aspen,” I said slowly, “when you went down on me. Your dad walked in on us, and . . . he watched.”
I raised my tentative gaze back to Royce, not wanting to see his reaction but knowing I deserved whatever was waiting for me.
His expression was blank. Too guarded for anything to leak out, but his stare was piercing. “He watched us have sex?”
“No, it was only for a minute.” I shifted uncomfortably on my feet and frowned. “I’d been telling him for weeks I only wanted you, but he wouldn’t stop. So, when he came in, I foolishly thought I’d show him.”
Displeasure smeared across my husband’s face, but he didn’t appear that angry with me. Perhaps he was thinking unfortunately it wasn’t the first time his father had witnessed us together, or maybe the basic, competitive male drive inside him responded to it. He’d shown his father which Hale I’d chosen, who had won.
“But it backfired.” My voice was empty. “He held it over my head and forced me into another deal.”
That stopped Royce cold. “What’d you do?”
“He made me watch Alice’s punishment and listen to her apology.” There was no soft or elegant way to say it. “And to punish her, she had to go down on him and then he came on her face.”
“What?” It took forever for the words to sink it.
“I didn’t want to be there, but he threatened everything would go back to how it was before. You know, after you’d sold me to him.”
“You watched my dad get a blowjob?” He grimaced. “That’s fucked up, Marist.”
It was, but he wasn’t being fair. I’d done it and worse so we could be together. My eyes went so wide with fury, they nearly burst from my head. “Not nearly as much as your family’s fucked up initiation, Royce.”
Anger tightened his eyes to slits. “I’ve told you that’s the first thing I’m going to change when I’m chairman.”
There was a meanness growing in me that was frightening, but I was powerless to stop it. Opening Macalister’s text message had been Pandora’s Box, and all the evils spilled out.
“But why?” I mocked. “Is it because when Vance joins the board, you’ll already know what Jillian’s pussy tastes like?”
He flinched. “Okay, first, that was years ago. And second, if you think I’d put anyone else through what we had to do, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
I was, though. My seams tore open as I unraveled. Everything was falling apart.
“You know what’s the worst part?” Tears welled in my eyes. “He told me he loved me, and you haven’t. I’m your wife, and you still haven’t.” He opened his mouth to say something, but I lifted my hand to stop him. “And if you said it now? How could I believe you?”
His eyes trapped mine, refusing to let go. “You may not believe me, but paying off Emily’s professor is the only lie I’ve ever told you when it was just us. I swear.”
He sounded so sincere, and I longed to believe him, but my mind refused. We’d begun as fiction and become real, but he’d let this lie live between us since the start. All the trust he’d built back up after the awful night he’d sold me to his father was shattered.
Oh, God. What if everything Macalister had been telling me from the beginning was true, and everything from his son was a lie?
“Where are you going?” he called, chasing after me as I hurried from the room and down the narrow hallway.
“I’ll sleep on one of the couches in the living room.”
“Fuck, no, you won’t. Come back to bed, and let’s talk about it.”
I gave him a death glare. “I need to be alone right now.”
He gave a sigh of frustration, and when he pinched the bridge of his nose, my focus landed on the wedding band. It hurt. That ring was the prize he’d wanted and gotten at my sister’s expense.