‘The first to know what?’ she asked, trying to garner the appropriate amount of enthusiasm for the game as they eked out the details.
‘The first to hear our wonderful news,’ Grace explained, beaming. ‘We’re going to be married.’
Oh, God, poor Grace. Not only did Grace have Loukas Demakis breathing down her neck, but now she was marrying this sleazebag of a man. She had no idea what she was letting herself in for.
And what made it worse was that Jade was going to have to be the one who told her. There was no way she could avoid telling her now. Grace would have to be told what she had seen that night in the library.
Rapidly losing the battle to grip onto her smile, Jade managed a brief, ‘Congratulations,’ before taking a sip from her flute. Anything to save her from saying something she might regret later. She wished mightily that the superb champagne was a better contest for the bitter taste in her mouth right now.
‘Absolutely—and I sure deserve a deal of congratulating. She sure made me sweat it out, waiting for her decision.’
Grace laughed, slipping her arm through the Mayor’s. ‘Goodness! It was only a few days. He actually asked me at the foundation Gala on Saturday night as he was leaving—wasn’t that sweet?’
Jade had to get out of there, and fast. She whispered a hurried but honest excuse that she’d come home early because she was feeling off-colour before she bolted to her bathroom just in time to lose the contents of her stomach. Far too much was happening tonight for her body to be able to cope with something as pedestrian as digesting food.
She sat there in the dark for a long time afterwards, wondering about—angsting over—what she should do. The Mayor’s behaviour was beyond repulsive, his actions utterly reprehensible. How could he have behaved that way—committing an act like that with some wannabe actress barely out of her teenage years—on the very night he’d gone on to ask Grace to marry him? What kind of man was he? And what kind of lousy husband would he make?
Her heart went out to Grace. How could she tell her? How could she dash her dreams?
She sucked in a deep breath as she collapsed onto her bed, her battered stomach bruised and aching but at least feeling more stable. Now it was just her mind that churned sickeningly.
Only one thing was clear—Grace was going to need her support more than ever once she was told the truth. And Jade would give her every bit of support she could, and she’d make doubly sure that people like Loukas Demakis couldn’t touch her. His mad accusations and his bizarre need for revenge for the sad tragedy that had taken Zoë from him were the last thing Grace needed right now.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she curled into a tight ball on the coverlet.
She didn’t want to think about Loukas!
At least not without anger. He’d used her as a means to get to Grace—to destroy Grace—and he’d told such hideous lies, made such crazy claims. It was okay to be angry.
Anger was what she wanted.
Anger was what she needed.
White-hot anger that would scorch the truth of his actions into her consciousness with an acid burn—only that way could she let herself think about Loukas.
Only that would take her mind off this huge sense of loss, this overwhelming sense of betrayal.
He’d made himself out to be a different person than he was. He’d made out that his advances to her had actually meant something when they hadn’t. He’d tricked her into having dinner with him, tricked her by promising one million dollars to the foundation. And yet he didn’t care anything for those children with birth deformities, the kids with bone or facial imperfections who had grown up being freaks and outcasts in their own families and their own communities. The kids whose families couldn’t afford the fares to get them to the clinic, let alone the cost of surgery. The kids who otherwise didn’t have a hope.
He’d found the one thing to ensure she’d agree to go with him, the ideal bait to hook her with, and he’d used it unconscionably to bend her to his will. And she’d gone along with it. She’d fallen for the bait and in the end he hadn’t even had to reel her in. She’d all but wrapped the fishing line around her throat herself. She’d offered herself to him on a plate.