“You let me believe you were here to help us!” My voice was rising now, anger and humiliation burning through the shock. “You let me think that paperwork was our salvation when you knew—you knew—it would destroy everything! I told you how much I loved this place. I told you the history and how it was the only thing I wanted. You have everything! Everything! And now you want what’s mine. You don’t need this. You don’t need the oil or the money!”
I felt so stupid. So unbearably naive. How could I have been so blind?
Emmy had warned me. Stacy had warned me. Even my own instincts had tried to tell me that Kent Bancroft was too goodto be true. But I ignored all of it because I had wanted so desperately to believe that someone could save us. That he could save us.
Kent reached for my hand. I yanked it back like he might burn me.
He did burn me. He incinerated my entire world. The family business was done. It was a double loss.
“Don’t touch me,” I said, wrapping my arms tightly around myself. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
“Sylvie, please. Just let me explain.”
“Explain what? How you came here specifically to screw my family over? How you slept with me while planning to take everything we have?” My voice cracked on the last word. I hated that I was about to cry in front of him. “God, why didn’t I listen to everyone who tried to warn me about you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He actually had the audacity to look like he meant it. “I never meant for things to get this complicated. I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did it anyway.” The anger was draining away now, leaving only a hollow ache in my chest. “You knew it would hurt me, and you did it anyway.”
“Sylvie, I swear, if there was another way…”
He didn’t finish his statement because it was a lie. We both knew there was another way. He chose not to take it.
“Why?” The word came out broken, barely audible. “Why did you have to get close to me? Why couldn’t you just make your offer and leave? What did I ever do to you to deserve this?”
I watched his face fall, and for a moment he looked genuinely tortured. But I couldn’t trust anything about him anymore. Every expression and word that had come out of his mouth had all been a performance.
“You didn’t do anything,” he said quietly. “Sylvie, you have to believe me, getting close to you wasn’t part of the plan. What happened between us, that was real.”
I laughed, but it came out harsh and bitter. “Real? You think any of this was real? You came here to destroy my family, Kent. You slept with me while planning to take everything we have. How is that real?”
“Because I fell for you!” The words exploded out of him, raw and desperate. “I wasn’t supposed to, but I did. Everything I feel for you is real, Sylvie. None of that was fake.”
“Stop.” I held up a hand, unable to listen to any more lies. “Just stop. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to make this about your feelings when you’ve been manipulating me from day one.”
“I know how this looks.”
“How it looks?” I stared at him in disbelief. “Kent, this isn’t about how it looks. This is about what you did. You let me fall for you while knowing you were going to destroy everything I love. You held me last night and let me talk about our future together when you knew there wouldn’t be one.”
The memory of lying in his arms just hours ago made me feel physically sick. I had been so naive, so trusting. I had handed him my heart on a silver platter while he was sharpening the knife to carve it up.
“I wanted there to be a future,” he said, taking a step toward me. “I still want that. We could figure this out together.”
“Figure what out?” I backed away from him, my voice rising again. “How to rebuild my life after you wreck it? How to start over somewhere else while your family gets rich off our land? There’s nothing to figure out, Kent. You made your choice the moment you decided to lie to me.”
I could see the desperation in his eyes, the way he was scrambling for something to say that might fix this. But therewas nothing. No explanation that could undo the betrayal, no apology that could heal the wound he’d carved into my chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. I could hear the helplessness in his voice. “I’m so fucking sorry, Sylvie. I never wanted to hurt you like this.”
“But you did it anyway.”
I needed to get away from him. Needed to talk to my father and figure out what the hell we were going to do now.
I turned and marched up the stairs, my arms still wrapped around myself like I could hold all the broken pieces together through sheer force of will.
“Sylvie, wait.”
“I have to talk to my father,” I said without looking back. “Leave, Kent. Get the hell out of here and never talk to me or touch me again!”
