Page 114 of Trailer Park Billionaire

Because I don’t know what else to do.

By the time I’m done, my hands are shaking.

The forgery is perfect and it makes me sick.

I sit there on the floor, my back against the wall, and I just stare.

At it.

At the wall of paintings that my grandfather gave me.

At the portrait I did of Ben. He’s posing like one of my French gargoyles in it, draped across a couch in nothing but a silky bathrobe, holding a baguette at just the right angle.

It makes the knot in my stomach twist.

I pick up a paintbrush, grip it like a knife.

At least I can ruin this. Wipe that stupid smirk off his stupid, beautiful face. Scratch out the lying eyes I once thought saw me like no one ever had.

So I raise the brush?—

And am interrupted by a knock.

A single, sharp knock on the door.

I freeze.

My heart spikes. My breath catches. Every cell in my body screamsrun—but there’s nowhere to go.

I don’t move. I don’t breathe.

Another knock. And someone calling my name.

I know that voice.

It’s Alexei.

Of course it’s Alexei. It’s still too early for Maximilian St. Clair. He said he’d come tonight.

I sag, letting out a breath that sounds more like a laugh than a sigh. A short, cracked thing. I’m not sure if it’s relief or just my soul leaking out of my lungs.

“Helena,” he calls again, gentle this time. “I’d like to show you something. It’s important.”

I snort. “Yeah? So was not lying to me. Didn’t stop you.”

There’s silence on the other side of the door. I can’t believe he doesn’t even show up himself. Just sends his friend. I mean I wouldn’t want to talk to him but still.

“I know,” Alexei says finally. “That’s why I’m here. To come clean. So you don’t have to keep wondering.”

“Wondering what?” I bite back. “Why Ben used me? Why he treated me like he loved me when he had a knife hovering behind my back the entire time?”

“Look, I’m not here to defend what Ben or I did. I’m just here to explain,” he says calmly.

I look back at the painting of Ben. The smirk I want to punch. The eyes I want to forget. The baguette I’d like to bite into.

I open the door. “Fine,” I say. “But just because I need to kill time. And because part of me—a very stupid, very betrayed part—still has questions.”

Alexei drives us across the city in Ben’s RV. The thing smells faintly of him and I hate it. I wish it would smell like wet dog and puke instead. Neither of us speaks. I don’t ask where we’re going. He doesn’t volunteer.