The look of smug satisfaction he’d been wearing disappeared at the tone of her voice.
“According to both you and my husband, he was aware of your bizarre efforts to keep track of me. That means that either he or Hawk has sufficient evidence to support charges being brought against you for stalking. Is that true, Angelo?” She asked the question without taking her baleful stare from Baron.
“Yes, stellina. True.”
She flinched at the endearment, but kept her gaze firmly fixed on Baron.
He had blanched, apparently finally coming to terms with the fact he had boxed himself into a dangerous corner where she was concerned.
“I want you to leave. I don’t ever want to hear from or see you again. If you ever attempt to contact me in any way or resume your pathetic little game, I will not only file both civil and criminal charges against you, but I will make darn sure your wife’s divorce attorney has all the evidence she needs to paint you in a light so deranged and amoral, you’ll be lucky to walk away from that marriage wearing socks under your shoes. Do I make myself clear?”
“Tara—”
“Do, I, Baron?”
“You’ve changed.”
“And you haven’t, but that’s not the issue, is it?”
“No, it is not,” Angelo answered, his voice colder than an Arctic wind. “The issue is that if Randall comes near you again, the picture you have painted for him will seem like the Elysian Fields compared to what I will do to him.”
“I’m leaving,” Baron gritted out, “but ask yourself if you should stay with a man capable of using you the way Angelo Gordon has.”
The parting words sent wounding shards into her already bleeding heart. She refused to give Baron the satisfaction of seeing her hurt, but what made it hard for her to even breathe was that no matter what sick motivation had prompted his revelations, he had been speaking the truth.
Angelo had used her to exact revenge against his enemy.
She didn’t mean anything to him. Not really. And that truth tore through her with all the emotionally destroying force of a level ten earthquake. She gripped the table rim in an effort to stay upright.
“Angelo?” she croaked.
He was by her side in a second, his big hands gripping her waist and shoulder. “Yes, stellina?”
“I want to go home now.”
She felt like she was being ripped apart. She knew Angelo didn’t love her, but to be nothing more than an instrument of revenge for the man who owned her heart was more than she could bear.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN THEY REACHED the apartment, she went to the bedroom and started packing. She didn’t pay attention to what she grabbed, she just pulled clothes from drawers and dumped them in the big suitcase she’d tossed on the bed.
“You are not leaving me.”
She didn’t acknowledge him with so much as a glance.
Long tanned fingers wrested the top she had just grabbed from her fingers. “No. We are going to talk.”
“We have nothing to talk about.” Remembering saying those same words to Baron made her flinch. “I’m not staying.”
“So, you let him win.”
She spun to face him at that, fury so intense she was shaking with it, filling her to the brim. “No one wins in the sick scenario. Not you. Not him. And certainly not me. You used me, Angelo. You lied to me and you promised me you never would.”
“I did not lie to you.”
“A lie by omission is still a lie.”
“No. It is not. Not unless you ask for the answer and I deny it. You did not ask. Nothing I have said to you has been untrue. Nothing.”
“Justify it however you like. It won’t change what you did to me. Baron is right. You are no better than he is.”
“Like hell. I did nothing to hurt you. I am not rejecting you. I married you!”
“To keep me away from him.”
His silence condemned him.
“Trying not to lie to me again?” she asked sneeringly.
“It does not matter.”
“You’re wrong and you’re wrong about me leaving. I’m going and you cannot stop me.”
“Damn it, Tara, you are pregnant with my child. You cannot just walk away from me.”
“I wouldn’t condemn my worst enemy to a father with your moral poverty.”
It was his turn to flinch. “You would…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but she didn’t care.
She just wanted out of there. She realized she didn’t need her clothes. She didn’t need anything but to be somewhere away from him.
She spun on her heel and marched from the room.
He grabbed her shoulder. “Where are you going?”