No buzz. Apparently, that was true.
“Why?”
He frowned. “What?”
I’d thrown him off guard. “Why did you want to check on me?”
“I still care about you, Susan,” he said soulfully. No buzz. That was true, too. “I want to make sure you are okay.”
Buzz. Mother fucker. He cared about me, but he didn’t want to make sure I was okay? What the hell did that mean? “What is it that you care about, Vincent?”
He shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “I… uh… Susie, I’ve always cared about your life. I care about what is going on with you right now.”
“Oh.” I nodded slowly. “I just figured it out. Your lawyer told you I’d bought this building, right? And you care about where I suddenly got the money from to get it?”
His mask was slipping. The soulful gaze turned suspicious. “So, it’s true. You did buy this building.”
“Yep.”
He nodded. A light of triumph flared in his eyes. He really thought he was going to get his hands on it.
“Feel free to let your lawyers know,” I said breezily.
He held out his hands in a pleading gesture. “Susie… I don’t want to take anything more from you,” he said mournfully.Buzz. “I don’t want anything else from you.”Buzz. “But my lawyer is furious. You cannot hide assets. It is illegal.” He stared at me urgently. “I’m thinking only of you.”Buzz. “You are still on parole. You could go back to jail.”
I threw my head back and laughed. This was crazy. “I never hid anything from you, Vincent.”
“But… but how…?”
I shrugged. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve… ah… upskilled recently, and I am currently employed by a… a wealthy company. They have offered me a very generous remuneration package.”
Fury simmered in his eyes.
I smiled. “You gave up your golden goose, Vincent.”
His features arranged into a careful expression of hurt and outrage—mouth slightly open, brow furrowed, shoulders drooping. “I never thought of you as a golden goose, Suzie.”
Buzz.
“Liar.” I laughed out loud, almost giddy. “You’re a liar, Vincent. You used me. You’ve been using me for our whole marriage, and you’restilltrying to use me.”
I took a step closer to him, fury burning just under my skin. “I gave you everything. My heart and my soul. I loved you more than anything in this world,” I bit out through clenched teeth. “And it was all a lie. For our entire relationship, you were just with me to get what you wanted. And thesecondI couldn’t give you one thing that you wanted, you fucked me over and left me for a sappy, skinny ginger bitch. She’s a terrible artist, too,” I added, rubbing it in. “A shitty cook. An awful hostess. Bart tells me you don’t holddinner parties at Bayview anymore. You might want to work on that; your patrons all liked to be entertained. Your sales will dry up.”
“Well.” His jaw clenched once. “At least she could give me the one thing that you couldn’t.”
“Ouch. Well, funnily enough, we could have had kids. You didn’t want to try IVF.”
He reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders, his face tortured. “I didn’t want you to go through any more pain, Susan!”Buzz. “You were tearing yourself apart, trying all sorts of fertility treatments. I just didn’t want you to be disappointed, again!”Buzz.
“Liar.” I grinned in his face. “What’s the real reason?”
He reared back. “What?”
“What’s the real reason you didn’t want to try IVF? Come on, Vincent. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
His eyes narrowed. I’d never seen him looking so angry before. “It’s invasive.”
“I’ve already established that you didn’t care about me. So this must be about you. You would find it invasive. But IVF isn’t invasive for men…”
