He takes a sip of his drink. His jaw works, and he sways.
“So you and Lance,” he says. “How long?”
“Art…”
“How long, Ginny?”
I press my lips together. “Long enough.”
“Before or after the engagement?”
“Before.”
He nods. Slow. Like he already knew and just needed to hear me say it.
“I saw you two. At the Calloway estate.” He laughs, but it’s hollow. “You know, my father told me. He said you weren’t worth the trouble. Said you’d end up being a liability. I defended you. I told him he was wrong.”
“Your father doesn’t know me.”
“Neither did I, apparently.”
“You never tried.” The anger surfaces before I can stop it. “You kept me in the dark about everything. You moved me here like property, you hid me from your father, you put Lance in a cage and ordered him to lose, and you want to stand here and act likeI’mthe one who betrayed this relationship?”
“I was trying to protect you!”
“By tricking me into moving here?”
He shakes his head.
“That’s what it was, right? Freddy bringing you to Boston. Dinners with my dad. You being charming. It was all a set up.”
“At first,” he says. “But then I got to know you. Then Ilovedyou, and you fucking played me.”
“You were trying to protect yourself. That’s all you’ve ever done.”
He flinches.
“Lance spent six years in that cage, Art.Six years.And you knew. You knew, and you let it happen because it was easier than standing up to people.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about. I lived in your world for over a year. I watched you smile for cameras and shake hands and play the people’s prince while the person who loved you most was bleeding for your sins.”
“He’s my best friend.”
“Then act like it!”
The words echo off the walls. Art’s glass trembles in his hand.
“She took him,” I say, and my voice drops because the anger is giving way to something else. “Beverly. Cassandra. Whatever you want to call her. She showed up in Boston with armed men and she took him, and he went willingly because she had guns pointed at me and my father and he’s so used to sacrificing himself for everyone else that he didn’t even hesitate.”
Art’s face changes. The bitterness drains out of it, replaced by something I haven’t seen on him in a long time. Something that looks like the man I fell in love with all those moons ago.
“Bevie? She’s still alive?”
“She’s alive. And she’s been running everything. Brutus, the Lye, Freddy, all of it. She’s Myrddin’s sister, Art. She played everyone. For years, and for God knows why.”
He sets the glass down on the desk. His hand is shaking.
