“T-Todd,” she stammered. “It was Malcolm Todd.”
Just as he thought. Twice now, Todd had crossed him. The bastard was going topay.
Straightening, Andrew stalked to the mantelpiece and clipped out, “Tell me everything.”
“Todd approached me. Apparently, he has some beef with you,” Kitty said warily. “He discovered that you were having an affair, and since it’s no secret that you and I have a past, he wanted me to cause trouble for you. Between you and your new lover.” She swallowed, her throat bobbing. “I had no choice, Corby. I owe Todd money. I’ve played too deeply at his tables, and you know what he does to those who don’t pay their debts. This was the only way I could save myself. Ihadto do this.”
He looked into her pleading grey eyes—and felt nothing.
“Get out,” he said.
Instead of leaving, she came to him. “I… I’ve missed you. I’ve thought about what you said the last time, about wanting more than fucking, and I realize that—”
“I don’t want more from you. I don’t want anything.” He didn’t know who disgusted him more: her or himself. “Fucking’s all we ever did, Kitty, and it wasn’t even good.”
Her eyes flashed, but she said in a wheedling tone, “I’ve changed—”
“I don’t give a damn,” he said flatly. “Your poison stopped working on me long ago.”
That was what Kitty had fed him for all those years: her own brand of toxicity. What she’d labelled as necessary for survival had been a recipe for his self-doubt and self-hatred—the better for her to manipulate him with. He’d realized this when he’d ended things with her; now hefeltit in the depths of his soul. The soul that had been awakened by joy and love—because of Primrose.
Pain bled through his icy control. How could he make things right with her? How could he—when the truth was she deserved better than him?
“You think that high-kick chit is better than me?” Kitty scoffed.
“I know she is.”
“She’s a bastard,” Kitty spat, “same as you and me.”
“She’s a lady, and it has nothing to do with her birth. It’s something you’ll never understand. Now get out,” he said in glacial tones. “If you breathe word of this, if I see you again—you will regret it.”
Fear darkened her eyes—then again, she’d always been a coward. She’d bullied and used those weaker than her. She’d called it survival, but in truth she was nothing more than a predator.
She headed for the doorway, where she, being who she was, couldn’t resist a parting shot. “What lady would want a pimp for a husband?” she sneered before flouncing off.
It wasn’t Kitty’s words that stayed with him but Primrose’s.
You disgust me. I never want to see you again.
A spasm hit his chest.I don’t blame you, sunshine.
Going to his bedside table, he opened the drawer. The rag doll looked out at him with lifeless eyes. He sank onto the mattress, his elbows bracing his thighs, and dropped his head into his hands.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
In her old bedchamber, Rosie opened the cabinet that contained her dolls. She’d left them here when she’d moved into Curzon Street; at the time, she’d thought of it as a symbolic letting go of her childhood. Now she found herself holding Calliope once more, looking at the doll’s composed porcelain face, her fingers curling into the folds of the doll’s perfect ballgown.
“Why did he lie to me?” she whispered.
Calliope stared back at her blankly.
“I don’t understand it. I thought Andrew loved me—he said he did,” she said, her throat swelling. “Why would he go to such lengths to protect me, only to betray me in the end?”
She’d been asking herself that question for the past two days. Well, that wasn’t precisely true. The day after Kitty’s shocking revelations Rosie had spent weeping. She’d cried and cried and cried. When her parents and even Edward had come to check in on her, she’d told them, “Go away.” She hadn’t been ready to talk; the last thing her misery wanted was company.
That had been yesterday. Today, she felt as dry as bone. But now that her emotions were sapped, fresh questions whirled in her mind.
Why did Andrew lie to me about Kitty?
