The Knight (Endgame #2)(17)

He notices, of course. Stepping over an embroidered ottoman, he crosses the slats to me. “Let’s see what you’ve found.”

The discovery feels too powerful to hold inside. I ache to share my excitement, my awe, but it’s still too fresh. Too private, especially for the eyes of my sworn enemy. He waits with excruciating patience. Slowly, reluctantly, I pull the diary from behind my back. The brown leather cover doesn’t reveal anything. “Nothing much. Just an old notebook.”

One eyebrow rises. “Is that right? You won’t mind if I look at it, then?”

Without waiting for me to answer, he plucks the diary from my hands.

“How dare you.” I move to snatch it back, but he’s already heading deeper into the attic, toward the stained-glass window where the light is better.

He reads from a page in the middle. “My mother insists that I accept Geoffrey’s offer. The St. James fortune is unmatched in Tanglewood society.” He pauses to glance at me. “How mercenary. I suppose it runs in the family.”

Rage burns through my veins. “You don’t know anything about my mother. Give that back to me. Right now.”

He’s too tall, holding the diary out of reach as he reads further. “She would accept Landon Moore, even though his family has fallen in society recently, but I can’t. I just can’t.” He makes a tsk sound. “Poor old Uncle Landon.”

My fists beat his back, fueled by righteous fury. “That’s not yours.”

“Isn’t it?” He cocks his head to the side, considering. “I own the holding company. And the holding company owns the house and everything inside.”

I grow still. “You’re going to keep it?”

“What a dilemma,” he says with faux sympathy, turning back to the page, reading again. “And the man I truly want has no money, no family name. No chance of winning my father’s approval. We both know that it’s impossible, but the heart doesn’t believe in boundaries.”

My heartbeat pounds in my ears. My righteous indignation toward Gabriel is eclipsed by the realization that my mother loved another man. At least she did once.

I know from archeological mythology that history isn’t about facts—it’s a story told by the survivors. The victors, both literal and figurative. I know that she married Geoffrey St. James, my father. They were wed until her death. Theirs was a happy marriage, a loving one, or so I thought. What if there’s another side to the story? Hers.

“Give me that.”

He slaps the diary shut, examining the well-worn cover. “No, I don’t believe I will.”

“It’s mine.”

“Actually I believe it belongs to your mother, but that’s neither here nor there. The holding company couldn’t possibly let go of something materially valuable to the property.”

“The diary isn’t going to affect the auction!”

“Won’t it? I think you’ll bid higher if the diary is included.” He slips the diary into his inside coat pocket.

“I’m already willing to bid everything I have.”

“Did you consider that I might be protecting you? You might not like what you find inside.”

“No,” I say, taking a step closer. We’re chest to chest, face-to-face. Or we would be if I wasn’t a full foot shorter than him. “Because you don’t know what’s in that journal, so how could you know whether I’ll like it? And besides, you don’t want to protect me. You want to hurt me.”

He draws a finger down my cheek, almost tender. “You might be right about that. I get hard just thinking about your blood on my sheets.”

My hand is up before I can consider the consequences, slapping him across the face. In the aftermath, my hand hurts more than I would have expected. And his head is turned away. From the side I can see the corner of his lips turn up.

When he faces me, there’s no warmth in his golden-brown eyes. The fire has frozen, crystallized like the frosted glass that lights his face. “God, you really did forget. You thought I was your knight in fucking armor, riding in to defend your castle.”

“No,” I whisper, but I’m terrified he’s right. That the limo driver and Charlotte Thomas and even Harper’s drunken declarations of Gabriel’s regret convinced me that he’s a good man. I thought I had kept my guard up, but now I see how utterly defenseless I am. He’s not going to save my castle. He’s going to burn it down.

Amusement would be easier to bear. The genuine sympathy lighting his eyes makes my stomach turn over. “My sweet little virgin,” he murmurs. “Always thinking the best of people. Even when they don’t deserve it.”

A single tear escapes my lashes, rolling down my cheek. “I don’t.”

“Oh, but you do. Did you think I bought you out of kindness? That I couldn’t bear to see you touched by any of those other men?”

“No,” I whisper, broken.

“Or maybe you believed I started to care for you, that I couldn’t bear to hurt you anymore.”

I shake my head in wordless denial. He sees too deep into my heart, into dreams I never dared to speak. Hoping for the impossible. A lion could never fall in love with a mouse.

He steps closer, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I fell madly in love with your beautiful little cunt. I loved the way it felt around my cock. I dream about it, darling.”