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Velvet looked at him with pity while her husband only gazed at him with silent warning.Upset my wife further, and it will be you against me.

While Willem was not at all frightened by the Greek billionaire’s threat, he was not at all interested in a fight where he didn’t have a bone to pick in the first place. “I am not marrying Shane Raleigh,” he said finally.

Willem privately hoped that his words would put an end to the discussion, but his hopes were quickly dashed when Velvet’s head jerked up, her eyes flying to him in excitement. “Then youaregoing to marry the younger sister?”

“No.” Willem was more exasperated than annoyed now. He knew, of course, that there were plenty of people in the world who considered the state of his love life more importantly than he did, but he had never thought he would actually come face to face with one of them, much less imagine that it would be someone like Velvet Sallis.

“I see.” Velvet was back in her seat, but her eyes were also swimming with tears.Again.

This time, Willem could not help it, and he told the Greek billionaire curtly, “I believe it would be better if I leave.”

He was about to stand up when he heard Velvet say, “Poor man. He doesn’t know what he’s losing.”

The words, intentionally or not, held too much truth in them. Something inside him exploded, and before he realized what he was doing, he had sat back down again and, leaning forward, gritted out at the Greek’s wife, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Because you know what? Your husband may be fucking right. Not everyone can be as lucky as you two are.” His voice was soft and icy, and anyone who knew him well would have known it was a sure sign of Willem’s rarely glimpsed rage coming to the fore. “Not all of us has the fucking fortune to just meet the person they’re meant for and fall in love at first sight. I read the fucking papers, too, and yes, I fucking know that you and Sallis fell in love through fucking text messages.”

He paused and sucked his breath in sharply.

In front of him, Velvet stared at him wide-eyed, her lips parted in shock while her husband stared at him with an unreadable expression.

Willem supposed he had made himself an enemy for life in the past three minutes, but he realized he didn’t give a damn. Not only that, but he realized he was filled with rage, and it was anger at Velvet, for rubbing salt on his wounds, anger at Serenity for loving him when he had told her not to, and – most of all – he was angry at himself.

Velvet Sallis had asked him the questions no one had ever dared to ask, had told him the words no one would even think of saying, and now there was no longer any way to escape the truth.

A truth that no one knew, not even Shane or Serenity – a truth that he had tried to blind himself to all this time.

“I’ve known that girl ever since she was fourteen,” he heard himself say hoarsely. “She’s the most fragile person I’ve ever known, but the strongest as well. I’ve known her for years, and there wasn’t ever a spark between us. No moment where it felt like a bolt of lightning had struck me, and I would realize that I was in love with her all along.”

He met the couple’s gaze. “Not even when we made love.” His voice was toneless. “There was no such moment, and when I realized that she loved me, I knew I had to leave. I knew she would hate me, thinking that I had left because I didn’t love her, but at least she could move on from there.” He dragged in another breath, a part of him dully realizing that there was something cathartic in the act of confessing the truth to strangers. He could not imagine himself exposing his weakness the way he was doing so now to his younger siblings. For the people who depended on him, he had to be strong and invincible.

But with Mykolas and Velvet Sallis, two people who did not and would never have to depend on him, the urge to reveal everything was impossible to deny.

Hehadto say what was inside his heart, if only to be sure he had done the right thing for Serenity.

“If she had known the truth, it would be worse,” he said hoarsely. “If she had known that Iwantedto love her at that moment and I couldn’t—-” He swallowed convulsively. “She would never stop blaming herself, would never learn to love herself. And I couldn’t bear that.” Slowly, he lowered his head. “So I left.”

Dimly, he heard the Greek billionaire’s wife sobbing, which he didn’t blame her at all for. He did have a rather sorry life, compared to what she had with her husband.

He closed his eyes, and pain crushed his heart into tiny pieces as he called into mind the last time he saw Serenity.

Please.

Please wait.

Please.

I don’t understand.

Please. Just tell me.

He remembered how savagely formal he had been, wanting to drive the point home, that from then on, she would no longer be his engel, the child he had watched grow up into the most beautiful girl in his eyes.

That’s the problem, Ms. Raleigh.

Not Sere, not engel, not even Serenity.

You thought I loved you.

“May I offer a word of advice, de Konigh?”