“Our arrangement has simply run its course.”
In other words, he was telling her to mind her own business, and Lydia’s panic started to devolve into something harder. Sharper. And violently unreasonable.
Why, dammit?
Why was Leonidas Gazis terminating their six-year arrangement?
Why was he choosing to walk away from her?
Was he truly leaving her for his stupid, boring wife?
“The property remains yours, free and clear. The investment portfolio I’ve managed on your behalf is also yours, transferred entirely into your name. You’ll find the returns have been...substantial.”
Substantial was an understatement. He’d taken her modest savings and turned them into millions. She was now wealthier than all the women she knew who hadn’t been born to it. Wealthier than she’d ever dreamed possible when she was a middle-class girl from Brescia with expensive tastes and limited means.
But unlike his stupid, boring wife, she’d never be enough.
“You’ve been more than generous,” Lydia managed to say with a brittle smile.
“I’ve been fair.” He buttoned his jacket, preparing to leave. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
When the billionaire rose to his feet, she did so as well, smile still carefully in place.
“I wish you well, Leonidas.”
Tawny eyes narrowed at her in unnerving scrutiny. “You’re being surprisingly accepting of this.”
“I know when to accept defeat.”
“Try not to think of it in that manner.” His voice was almost gentle.Almost. “It might delude you into thinking that there is something for either of us to fight for. It is ideal if you consider this as a new beginning instead.”
A new beginning.
As if she could simply start over. As if losing him was just another chapter closing, another door opening.
“You’re right as always, darling.” Lydia walked him to the door, knowing better this time than to attempt a goodbye kiss as she used to do. If she were to betray her plans the slightest, she knew he would act fast, and she would never be able to do anything.
So she kept smiling until the billionaire was gone.
But the moment the door closed behind him, and she heard his limousine drive off—
Lydia SCREAMED.
Her tantrum lasted an hour.
She threw everything she could throw. Shattered the crystal vases he’d given her. Ripped the silk curtains from their rods. Overturned the coffee table with its expensive marble top. The sound of breaking glass and splintering wood echoed through the apartment until the neighbors called building security.
By the time she was done, the living room looked like a crime scene. Shredded fabric, shattered crystal, overturned furniture. The cream leather sofa she’d been so proud of was gouged with knife marks.
It would all have to be professionally remodeled.
She didn’t care.
After that, she went on a three-day drinking spree. One wild party after another, moving through Milan’s nightclub scene like a woman possessed. Drugged. Drunk. Growing in rage with every passing second.
By the third night, collapsed in some stranger’s penthouse with dawn breaking over the city, one thought crystallized with perfect, terrible clarity:
I will get him back.
