Still he said nothing—but I knew his mind was working. He was hiding behind that aristocratic English mask that I hated so much, faintly polite and bored. But his heart visibly pulsed hard on the side of his throat, a quick rhythm that revealed he wasn’t as unaffected by me as much as he would have liked to have been.
And thatinfuriatedme.
I acted without thinking, on instinct, my hand rising as if by its own accord. The slap turned his face, the sound ringing in my ear. Irritated skin turned red from my hand’s imprint.
Whit shut his eyes, and I expected him to become cold and angry, but then he turned back to me, opening his eyes, and lifting his chin. His blank expression stole my breath. His face had lost all color, all warmth. He had retreated so far from me he might as well have been on another continent.
“You married me for my money.” If I had to speak the words underwater,it would have been easier. In my whole life, I never thought I’d be in this situation. “Youusedme.”
I shoved him, both palms against his immovable chest.
He bore it without a ripple of emotion, only staring back at me stonily.
“You’re a liar,” I said sharply, my voice rising with every word. “Everything between us was a lie. Every word, every vow.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. The only indication he had heard me at all.
“Saysomething.”
Color returned to his cheeks, twin patches of red blooming bright. “Not everything,” he said through clenched teeth. “Our friendship was—is—real to me.”
“It was never a friendship,” I said in disgust. I regretted pushing him to talk to me. “And youknewthat.”
He flinched. Opened his mouth—
“You want to say more words to me, Whit?” I asked incredulously. “Really?”
Whit closed his mouth.
I couldn’t stand to see this version of him, remote, locked up tight. I was unraveling, fracturing into a million pieces, while he became more stiff, more rigid, more isolated. “Your words are cheap. They mean nothing.”
He didn’t bat an eye at this. That should have been the end, but my feet remained rooted to the ground. Curiosity burned in my chest, a sharp ache. I wanted to know why he’d betrayed me. I wanted to know what was worth our marriage. Our relationship, and whatever it might have been.
My damned heart.
I was torn, wanting to run as far away from him as possible, to create enough distance that it’d take him years to find me. But I wanted answers, too.
“I have a right to know where the money went,” I said.
He clenched and unclenched his jaw. “I sent it to my family,” he said, after a long, torturous beat. “They’re in debt and they were about to marry off Arabella to a man forty years her senior. I wanted to protect my sister from that fate.”
My heart foolishly leapt. He’d taken the money for love of his sister.But he was being cruel—he’d made a choice, and it wasn’t me. He married me and then robbed me blind. Did he expect me to be sympathetic? Was I supposed to be moved? Everything he was saying might be more manipulation.
More words that cost nothing.
I wasn’t sure if I could take anything else from him, but the question ripped out of me. “Why didn’t you ask me for it?”
Whit stared at me unflinchingly, his expression hard. “Are you honestly telling me that if I were to have told you that I needed all of your money, you would have given it to me?”
Everyone had warned me off from anyone who was even in clamoring distance of a fortune hunter. It was why all my suitors had come from families with means. Men who had no need of my fortune. Who might come to care for me, without the allure of piles of gold in an account.
If Whit would have asked me for the money, I certainly wouldn’t have given him all of it, but I might have given him some. I stared past his shoulder, considering. But I would have always wondered if he had marriedmeor my inheritance. Except, he had clearly planned all of this from the beginning. He had known about my parents’ money even before I had met him, would have seen where their cash had gone in funding Abdullah and Ricardo’s excavation seasons.
Whit’s expression turned shrewd. “Would you have thought of me as a fortune hunter?” He let out a mirthless laugh. “You would have, Inez. And I couldn’t risk asking you. My sister’s life was at stake.”
Well, I’d heard his explanation. He had married me to save someone else. I was the one who had been lied to, the one not picked. The one rejected. Again. Tears clouded my vision. With a start, I realized that I didn’t care that the money was gone. The fortune belonged to my parents. Then it became my uncle’s. It was always out of my reach. No, what I cared more about was the fact that I had married a man I loved, hoping to call him family.
But he had never planned to have a life with me.
