"But you're alive," Isobel said. "You got out safely. That's what matters."
"Is it?" He looked at her, and she saw something break in his expression. "The Mayfair Fox was my entire identity, Isobel. It was who I was. How I defined myself. And now it's gone, and I—" His voice cracked. "I don't know who I am without it."
Twenty-Eight
"You can rebuild it."
Isobel's voice cut through the grey dawn light filtering into the drawing room. She stood by the window now, her arms wrapped around herself, watching Andrew with an intensity that made him want to look away.
"What?"
"The club." She turned to face him fully. "You can rebuild it. Start over. I'll help you. We can do it together."
Together. The word should have warmed him. Should have made him feel less alone in the wreckage of everything he'd built.
Instead, it felt like another weight pressing down on his chest.
"You don't understand." His voice came out gruffly. "It's not just a building, Isobel. It was—" He stopped, struggling to find words that wouldn't sound pathetic. "It was mine."
"Yes, I heard you the first time." Her tone had cooled considerably. "It was yours, and now it's gone. So you build something new."
"You're not listening." He pushed himself off the settee, ignoring the protest from his bruised ribs. "The Mayfair Fox wasn't just some business venture I could replicate like ordering a new coat. It was everything."
"Everything?" She arched an eyebrow. "More than your title? More than your family legacy?"
"Yes!" The word exploded out of him. "My title is an accident of birth. The family legacy was my father's ruin that I happened to inherit. But the Fox, that wasmine. Something I created. Something I built with my own hands when I had nothing."
Isobel was quiet for a moment, studying him with those amber eyes that saw too much. "Are you financially ruined?"
"What? No." He waved a hand dismissively. "I have plenty of money. Investments, properties, the ducal estates."
"Then I don't understand." Her voice had gone flat. "You have the money and power to do whatever you want. You can rebuildten clubs if you wish. So why are you acting like your life is over?"
"Because it's not about the money!" He was shouting now, and he knew he should stop, should calm down, but he couldn't seem to control the words pouring out. "It was never about the money. Don't you see? The Mayfair Fox was my life's work. I built it alone, when I was helpless and drowning in my father's debts. When everyone looked at me and saw nothing but a gambler's son destined to repeat his mistakes."
He paced to the fireplace, bracing his hands against the mantel, staring into the dying embers. "I took the very thing that destroyed my father and made it my strength. I turned his vice into my virtue. The entire Foxdrey Dukedom came back to life because of the Mayfair Fox. Everything—the restoration of our properties, the respect we command, the fortune we possess now—it all stems from that club."
"No." Isobel's voice was quiet but firm. "Foxdrey came back to life because of you. Because of your intelligence, your determination, your refusal to give up. The club was just a tool you used, Andrew. You're the one who wielded it."
He shook his head, still staring at the embers. "You don't understand what it meant. What it means. For twelve years, that club has been my identity. When people hear 'the Duke of Foxdrey,' they think of the Mayfair Fox. When they see me, they see the man who turned gambling into an empire. Without it, I'm just—" His voice cracked. "I'm just another Duke. Just my father's son with a fancy title and no real accomplishments."
"That's not true."
"It is." He turned to face her, and he saw her flinch at whatever she saw in his expression. "The Fox was my proof, Isobel. Tangible, visible proof that I'm not him. That I'm different. Better. It showed the world, showedme, that I could succeed where he failed. That I had control where he had none. That I was more than just the wreckage he left behind."
"You are more than that." She moved toward him, her hands outstretched. "Andrew, listen to me…"
"Without the Fox, what distinguishes me from my father?" The question came out raw, desperate. "We're both Dukes. We both came into wealth through our titles. We both—" He stopped, bile rising in his throat. "God, we both ran gambling operations. The only difference was that mine was legal and successful. But strip that away, and what's left? Just another Pasley with too much money and too little character."
"Stop it." Her voice was sharp now. "You're not thinking clearly. You're exhausted and hurt and in shock."
"I'm thinking more clearly than I have in months." He laughed, a hollow sound that echoed in the silent room. "All this time, I've been lying to myself. Telling myself I'd moved past my father's shadow. That I'd proven I was different. But the moment the Fox burns down, I'm right back where I started, a scared boy wondering if he's doomed to become the monster who raised him."
"You're not your father!" Isobel's hands clenched into fists. "How many times do I need to tell you that? Your father was cruel and selfish. He destroyed lives without remorse. You've never?—"
"Haven't I?" He cut her off. "Ask Lord Dalton's family if I haven't destroyed lives. Ask all the men, your father even, who've gambled away their fortunes at my tables if I'm so different from my father."
"Those men made their own choices."
