I narrowed my gaze. “How will you come by this information?”
He only looked at me blandly. “Recall what I do for a living.”
“You still work for my uncle?” I said in surprise. “I thought he was too furious at our—” I faltered, unable to continue. We had tricked Tío Ricardo, and then Whit had tricked me. All I’d done since arriving in Egypt was to plot and scheme until I had gotten my way. I’d disguised myself, stowed away in my uncle’s dahabeeyah, lied to everyone—including Whit—when I snuck the artifacts from Cleopatra’s tomb and into my mother’s hands. I had allowed Elvira to dance at a ball, when I knew it was dangerous.
What hadn’t I done to get my way?
A sickening pit yawned deep in my belly. Whit and I were the same kind of human. People who maneuvered chess pieces on a board, aiming to win. Whit stared at me broodingly, seeming to understand every nuance to my expression. He looked primed for action, his shoulders tense, readying to chase after me if I so much as moved. His being here at all confused me. He’d taken my money. What else did he want?
“Why are you still here?”
“I know it’s hard to believe,” he said softly, “but I meant every word of my vows.”
“Did you?” I said, in what I hoped was a biting tone. To my ear, I sounded breathless. I forced myself to lean away from him.
“Yes, I did.”
I thought back to the promise he’d made me, said in his confident and arresting voice—the one that made others sit up and listen or get out of his way. That night, he’d spoken vows ofprotectingme. That had been the gist. Disappointment clouded my vision, and I turned my face away so he wouldn’t see my watery eyes. At no point did he promise to love me. He had been warning me, even then.
I was too much of a besotted fool to hear the words he didn’t say.
Papá used to say that whenever I felt lost, it was because I wasn’t telling myself the truth. He explained, in his soft, breathy voice suitable for libraries and churches, that people were often afraid to tell themselves the truth. They would rather lie, would rather deny, would rather ignore what was right in front of them.
I vowed to myself that I would always deal in truth. No matter how much it cost me, or weakened me, or even if it killed me.
One, I couldn’t count our wedding night as some kind of declaration on his part. It had been my choice. He would have waited, but I was the one who convinced him it had to be done.
Total ruination. That had been my intent.
Two, he had needed money and I was there for the taking. That,andhe knew how badly I wanted to stay in Egypt. In proposing marriage, he was offering a solution—one that benefited him, but a solution nevertheless.
Three, he had told me never to believe a word he said.
A small voice whispered against my skin, aliepulling me toward that moment in the tomb when he had kissed me in the dark. I thought we were finally laying bare our feelings, our souls. We were dying—slowly but surely—and I had stupidly thought the time for honesty had finally come.
Here was truth number four: Whitford Hayes would have kissed anyone.
And the last, most devastating truth: Whit was still in Egypt, not because he was honoring his vows, not because he wanted to help me, but because he wanted to find Cleopatra’s Chrysopoeia. Hemighthave some misguided sense of obligation toward me, some sense of the responsibility that lay on his shoulders. He might evenpityme. Either way, that was what was motivating him now.
I shuddered.
I couldn’t stand the idea of him feeling that way about me when I had been prepared to give him my life. He was here because our goals ran parallel to each other’s, and it gave him an opportunity to atone for what he had done. No—atoning for something meant that there was regret, there was remorse.
Whit felt neither of those things.
“Do you know that you never apologized?” I whispered.
“I’m aware,” Whit said in a flat voice. “And I never will.”
I could only gape at his ruthlessness. I couldn’t believe how much I’d misjudged him.
“I am sorry for the way it happened,” he amended. “That wasn’t what I had planned. But I can’t apologize for saving my sister, because I would make the same decision all over again,” he said quietly. “Arabella means a great deal to me.”
And I did not.
The implication hurt, but I refused to let it show.
It would be profoundly foolish not to accept his… expertise. But we had gotten off topic, and the sooner we discussed the parameters of our partnership, the sooner I could walk away from him. There was only so much of this I could handle. My heart was the one that was broken. Not his.
