Page 174 of Boss of the Year

“Daniel.” Lucas’s voice sharpened like a blade now.

But Daniel was past caring about warnings.

“Oh, you didn’t tell her the best part,brother?” My childhood crush was gone now, replaced by a man who spat venom. “How you were supposed to stay in France just long enough to keep her here while theTimesannounced the engagement next fucking week? Then get her a job somewhere in Europe so you could let her go without a problem? Don’t worry, Marie, he was going to set you up real nice. An apartment, a good payoff, everything you need for a nice new life. All of it with the assumption that he’d stay, of course. But the plan was to come back at the end of the month for my little ‘wedding’ and leave you here for good.”

The room tilted, and I reached out for anything—a pillow, the headboard—to keep me from falling over.

“Lucas?” His name was small and high on my tongue. “Is this—is any of this true?”

Lucas stood between us, halfway through buttoning up his shirt, when my eyes found his. His entire face had gone white. “I can explain.”

“Explain what?” My voice was rising as I scrambled backward in the bed, suddenly twisted in the soft cotton sheets. “Explain that yet again, you seduced me for the sole purpose of distracting me from your brother? That you manipulated me intolovingyou just to break—no, smash—my heart?”

Lucas seemed to crumple as he stepped toward me. “Marie, please?—”

I thought of the gifts. The way he’d tracked me to the club. Piled on literally everything he could think of to present the idea of a happy ending for the two of us.

It had all been a lie. He had known the whole time that there was no future for us, just like I’d always suspected. But he’d played his part well, all the way to this room, where he’d stripped me naked, body and soul.

“Answer the question!” I yelped, loud enough that he jumped back. “Is it true?”

On the couch now, Daniel swayed, now singing softly to himself in his inebriated state.

Lucas closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, they were full of pain. “Originally, yes. That was the plan.”

The admission slapped me across the face as if it had been his palm.

“So this afternoon—this week—the gifts, the following me to my interviews. The talk at the café, bringing me back here to m-make love—” I cut myself off just as my voice warbled. I didn’t know what else to call what he had done to me, but maybe that was just another moment of me being a poor, blind idiot. “That was all just part of keeping me away?”

“No,” Lucas said, but his voice was weak.

Suddenly, I couldn’t stay here anymore. Suddenly, I couldn’t move quickly enough, taking the sheet with me, I lurched out of the bed and started searching for my clothes. “I have to leave. I have to go. Now.”

“No.” Lucas was a flurry of movement, crossing the room quickly, hands outstretched to stop me as I made for the bathroom. “Marie, sweetheart, please let me explain?—”

“Don’t call me that!” I howled as I whirled around and slapped him. Hard. Much harder than I had in the conservatory that night so long ago, and with more vitriol than I ever thought I had in me.

The sound of my palm meeting his cheek echoed through the room like a gunshot, and Lucas’s head snapped to the side from the force of it.

He took it without flinching, without trying to defend himself.

Didn’t even touch the handprint after. It was like he wanted it to sting even more.

“For what it’s worth,” Daniel called from the couch, where he now seemed to be settled in for a nap, “I don’t blame you for sleeping with him. God knows I’ve never been one to walk away from a good time, and I’m paying for it now, aren’t I, honey? We all are.”

He slouched onto the couch, and a few moments later, his eyes were closed, a light snore pouring from his mouth.

I looked between him and Lucas—two men who had turned my life into a chess game where I was just a pawn to be moved around at their convenience. Disasters, both of them, in completely different ways.

I turned to Lucas, who now blocked my way to the bathroom, as if he thought keeping me in nothing but a bedsheet would prevent me from leaving.

He was wrong.

“How much?” I asked quietly.

Lucas frowned. “What?”

“How much was I going to cost? What was my price?”