“A woman?”
How the hell does he know that?
As if he’s heard the question, he answers, “I recognize the look.”He chuckles, but it’s hollow.Cresthaven shrugs.“The woman in question.She have anything to do with that nasty cut on your head?”
Without conscious thought, I touch the place where she’d clobbered me.
Even though I don’t respond, Cresthaven senses the truth.“Never seen you give two damns about a woman.”
I lift my glass and tip it toward him in acknowledgement.Until her, I hadn’t.
“Welcome to the club, Moretti.”The words are a scoff.
“Yeah.”This is the first time in my life that I’ve taken a drink because of the fairer sex.
He swirls his glass, staring into the amber liquid.
And I’m done with questions about my life.“Who’s got you tied up in knots?”
He hesitates, his jaw tightening.“A woman I can’t have.Shouldn’t want.”
“Jesus.”Not his son’s former wife.
It’s no secret that Cresthaven’s son married above him, even though he’s a billionaire and she wasn’t.
At the wedding, he swayed back and forth, forcing the best man to step in behind him more than once.
Kelsey, for whatever reason of her own, pretended not to notice and went ahead with the ceremony.
At the time, I guessed they wouldn’t make it six months.
I was wrong.But not by much.
If rumor was right, Cresthaven sided with his former daughter-in-law over his son in the divorce.
Silence hangs between us.Then in the distance, someone laughs.
Finally he downs the rest of his drink.“Obsession’s a bitch.”
Obsession.The word hits too close.
I think about my very real physical reaction to seeing Valentina in the wedding dress.
Eternal damnation.
I’d wanted to strip her bare and fuck her raw.
But it had been so much more than that.For a moment, she’d gotten past my defenses, made me stop thinking about my father, forget about revenge.
Instead, I’d seen her as my wife, the woman by my side, pictured her body swollen with my baby, our child.
And I’d hated my emotional, weak thoughts.
Mentally I’d shaken myself.Russo’s daughter was nothing more than a means to an end.If I didn’t hate looking at her while I was sticking my dick in her, fine.That would be a small consolation for the sacrifice I was prepared to make on my family’s behalf.
So after the kiss at the bridal shop that had unraveled her and taken me to the depths of hell, I’d put distance between us.
My words were intentionally cruel, deliberately doled out to make her recoil from me.
