I peered. “My painting,” I blurted. “Did you move it?”
He set me down. “Look, Tess…”
“Where is my painting?” I said slowly.
“It was just an ugly little painting.” Beck let out a breath. “You couldn’t have liked it that much anyways.”
“What happened?” I shrieked, too drunk to even pretend to sound rational.
Beck pressed his lips together and turned away from me. “I gave it to your sister.”
“You gave it to—what?—my stepsister? Are you out of your mind! What the fuck, Beck? Why?”
“Because she was going to make those social media posts recanting the gossip.”
I felt like I had been punched in the chest.
“I need to sit down.”Should not have had that extra slice of pie and glass of wine.
Beck turned back to me and took my hands as I slumped in a chair. “I’m sorry, Tess, but it was the only way. I needed to shut them down. I can’t lose my sisters. You know that. I will pay you back for the painting,” he promised. “I’ll even pay more than it’s worth because your mom probably bought it for, what, about twenty dollars at a thrift store?”
I felt like I was going to puke.
“I thought you wouldn’t care,” Beck said in a rush, brushing my hair out of my face. I jerked away from him.
“My mother gave that to me.”
“I know,” he said, infuriatingly calm. “But I’ll buy you a nicer painting. I can buy you a Rembrandt or a Picasso.”
I shook my head. “That was all I had of my mother,” I said quietly. “That was it; I have nothing else. She left everything to my stepfather. That was the only thing she left to me, the only thing I was able to take of hers when he kicked me out at seventeen. That’s it. And now it’s gone because of you. How could you?” I started to cry.
“I didn’t know it was that important to you,” he admitted. “I thought it was just something of hers you had. I thought… anyways, it doesn’t matter. I had to, don’t you see? For my sisters.”
“Really?” I asked bitterly. “You have billions of dollars, and the only way you could think to solve the problem was giving away my painting?”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he repeated.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I said, standing up in a daze.
It felt like my mother had died all over again, I felt the same sense of betrayal, of being alone in the world.
“Where are you going?” Beck asked in concern as I stumbled to the door. “I thought you said you wanted dinner?”
“I’m going home,” I told him. “To my real home.”
I felt shell-shocked as I stepped off the elevator into the lobby. Belle and Vera looked at me in concern.
“What happened?”
I blinked, then the anger and hurt and betrayal set in.
“Fucking backstabbing Svenssons!” I screamed. “God, Beck is such a sociopath. He’s just like my stepfather. I never should have trusted him. I never should have dated him. I have rules. I have rules for this type of thing. This is why I don’t date because you can’t trust men. They will just use you then grind your dreams and sense of self into the dirt. God, I was so stupid!”
Belle wrapped me in a sympathetic hug. “I hate to say I told you so, but I’ve been screwed over by a Svensson male before,” she said, pulling back to look at me. “It’s not your fault. None of them know how to behave in normal society. They only think about themselves. You got caught in a trap.”
“Was any of it real?” I blinked back tears.
“Honestly?” Belle said bitterly. “Probably not.”
