She made a sound in her throat that was unlike anything he’d ever heard. A sound of torment and heartbreak. It pierced the room like the cry of a wounded animal, and it took everything not to drop to his knees as she spun away, her shoulders shaking with the force of his betrayal.
He spun toward his brothers and found them staring, grinning, eating this up. “Why?” he gasped out, hardly able to find breath. “Sophie and I are nothing to you. You’d already won your victory when you stripped me of my allowance. Why interfere in this?”
“Because you deserve nothing good in your life, Rowan. You took our father, you took a portion that you never deserved,” Alistair said, his nostrils flaring and his cheeks flaming. “You took his love. And now I’ve returned the favor.”
Rowan stared, taken aback by the raw emotion in his eldest brother’s voice and on his middle brother’s face. He’d known they hated him for years. Today it was clearer than ever.
“You get out!”
He jumped as Sophie strode across the room, her eyes snapping rage. This time it was not directed at him, though, but at his brothers. And it was bright and glorious and strong and powerful enough that Keaton actually flinched.
“You two have done what you came for,” she said, running right up into Alistair’s face. “You are cold, heartless snakes and you should be ashamed of all you are and all you have been. You are not fit to shine his boots.”
Alistair glared down at her. “Even now you defend him?”
She narrowed her gaze. “I will not ask again. Get out.”
His brothers exchanged a look and then pivoted together. They pushed past Rowan and out the door without another word. Not that it mattered. As Sophie said, they had done what they came to do.
They had destroyed his world. Or at least helped him destroy his own. Either way, it was done now.
Rowan paced back to the door and softly shut it, granting them privacy. As he turned back, he said, “Thank you for that, Sophie. I did not deserve it.”
She lifted her gaze, and it was so fucking empty and pained. “No,” she murmured. “You did not. And now I’m going home.”
She moved to walk past him, to walk out of his life forever. Panic lifted in him, something so sharp and harsh that it nearly set him on the ground. He lunged forward and caught her arms, holding her steady. She thrashed for a moment.
“Please, please!” he cried. “Please let me explain.”
She pushed from his arms and backed up, her breath short as she stared at him. “And just how do you intend to do that, Mr. Sinclair?”
He flinched at her use of his formal address. And at the coldness in her tone and stare that accompanied it. He sucked in a breath and said, “By telling you the truth. All of it. From the very beginning. Please. Please, let me, and then I swear I’ll let you go even if it kills me to do so.”
Sophie stared at Rowan with a cacophony of emotion rioting within her. Topmost was the betrayal. His brothers had told her such horrid things, laughing as they did so, giving evidence for what Rowan had done. And then he’d admitted it.
But something else rose through all that heartbreak and pain. She was shocked at how desperate Rowan seemed. How emotional. He was panicked. He’d always been so strong, so unbothered, so in control, that seeing him now like this, she couldn’t help but be moved.
Of course, she knew that his terror might have to do with losing her purse rather than her heart.
But there was only one way to find out.
She folded her arms, wishing she could put on armor in this moment when she felt so hurt and so vulnerable. “Fine,” she said through clenched teeth. “Give me your explanations, Rowan. Tell me what exactly you did and how you think pursuing me for my money should make me feel.”
Relief washed over his features and he motioned her to the settee. She glared at him but slowly made her way there. She sat on the far side, her legs turned outward to put space between them. He sighed and took a place on the other side of the settee, not pushing in, not crowding her physically even though she could see he wanted to.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “May I get you anything?”
“Just talk,” she said, turning her face slightly.
He swallowed. “You have seen my art.”
She stiffened as she thought of that beautiful portrait he had done of her came to mind. It had meant so much to her, for he had clearly put so much of his heart into it. Would it be spoiled too when this was done?
“What about it?” she asked, trying to keep her tone cool.
“I told you that my father and mother supported me in my pursuits,” he said. “But I had to paint under another name, so as not to associate such a thing with my father’s title. The scandal if it came out would have been terrible. Men of my station don’t make art. That’s what those of Society would say. So I kept it private, and lived on the allowance given to me by my father.”
“But your brothers cut you off,” she said, flinching as she recalled their pleasure when they told her so.
