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“Iuse women?” Atlas snorted.
“You put your sister in a sanitarium like a Victorian husband with his hysterical wife, to embarrass me at the party and divide the two of us.” He waved between himself and Carmel.
“I put myself there, Daddy. I’ve had to accept that.” Carmel clutched her elbows, looking as though she wanted to say more, but Oliver ignored her as he continued attacking Atlas.
“You kept a chambermaid as your mistress for years then married her when you got caught, purely to stick a knife in my back!”
“That’s not what I did.” Atlas sent a sharp glance to Stella. They hadn’t had a lengthy affair, but the rest was not inaccurate. She knew it as well as he did.
She rolled her lips inward, pinning them closed, deeply uncomfortable.
“Why did you marry her, then?” Oliver demanded. “It wasn’t her fortune or her connections. She doesn’t bring anything to your marriage except a great pair of—”
“Careful,” Atlas said through gritted teeth.
“Too close to the truth?” Oliver mocked. “You’re not fit to run DVE if you can’t recognize a gold digger when you see one. Well done, girlie.” Oliver finally acknowledged her. “I’ve seen some slick operators in my time, but you really found your mark with this one, didn’t you?”
“Don’t speak to her if that’s how you’re going to talk,” Atlas cut in sharply. “And you don’t have to listen to this,” Atlas said to her gruffly. “You can wait in the car if you want to.”
“I’m here to support Carmel.” Did they all forget she was fragile as a newborn right now? Did they forget she washere, hugging herself and looking wan? “Would you like to come to London with us?” Oliver looked to be in a vile mood. Stella would never leave one of her siblings to handle her father alone if he looked like this.
“No.” Carmel shook her head, body tense and expression stiff.
“Oh, she’s good,” Oliver said with sarcastic admiration. “I bet she told you she loves you to get her hands on all of this. Didn’t you?”
“No.” Stella reminded herself this man meant nothing to her, but she still felt stripped raw under his contemptuous regard. It was too familiar, compelling her to push back and assert her truth. “But I do.”
“Love him? I’m sure.” Oliver choked on a withering laugh. “I’ve never understood why they call them working girls when they never want towork.”
That was deeply unfair yet hit a tender spot in Stella. She had workedsohard for everything she had and had resisted becoming reliant on Atlas, but here she was, looking like the opportunist Oliver judged her to be. It stung to her very core.
Her throat closed, making it impossible to defend herself while Atlas visibly swelled with anger. He seemed to expand while his face darkened and his mouth tightened. So did his fist.
“I married her soIcould get my hands on it,” he said with icy fury. “Does it feel good to see the monster you created in your own image? One who uses innocent people to get what he wants?”
“It always comes back to your mother, doesn’t it?” Oliver said tiredly. “She was no victim, Atlas. She wanted it. She threw herself at me and made out fine, exactly as planned. Exactly as this one will.” He waved pithily at Stella. “Exactly asyouwill.”
Atlas swore. “No. You have dangled DVE like a carrot for seventeen years. Tomorrow, I’m taking what’s mine. You can step down or I will leave DVE and take a third of its capital and assets with me. Yes,” he added grimly as Oliver’s face reddened with outrage. “I’d rather destroy it than let you keep whatI’vekept alive. You have met your match, Oliver, because Iamyou.”
He waved Stella toward the door.
* * *
“Will Carmel be all right?” Stella asked once they were in the car.
“Chester knows to get her help if she needs it.” Atlas had made that clear after last time. God knew Oliver wouldn’t do anything. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“I don’t care about him or his opinion of me.” She sounded like she was being honest, but it was the ugliest blowup he’d ever had with his father. His attacks on Stella had infuriated Atlas, but far worse was his own behavior.
He had taunted Oliver by saying he was his mirror image, but it was hitting him that the words were too true. Appallingly true. He had ruthlessly used Stella in an attempt to get what he wanted. Even Rafael Zamos had seen it. Atlas could pretty it up with sparkling baubles and generous gifts and attentive lovemaking, but the truth was, he had used Stella’s worries over her family to achieve his own ends.
I bet she told you she loves you.
No. But I do.
His heart had nearly come out of his throat when she had said that. It made his behavior that much worse. That much more like Oliver, who had encouraged a woman to fall for him purely to appease his own desires.
Atlas couldn’t stand how far he’d sunk to his father’s level. It drenched him in disgust and self-loathing.