Page 129 of Keep Me Close

I force myself to ask, “What does that mean?”

He exhales slowly. “It means my father wasn’t a good man.”

Some part of me has always known that Malcolm Landry was hard and controlling. He was cold in the way men of a certain generation and breeding often think of as strength. He intimidated rooms by merely entering them, and looked at people like pieces on a chessboard. Valuable only if they could be moved in a strategic way that benefited him.

“And I wasn’t strong enough to fight him when I should’ve.”

The words drop between us like stones.

For a second, all I can do is stare. Despite my best efforts, my voice comes out sounding unsteady. “Fight him over what?”

Hugh’s throat works once. “My father had already arranged it.”

I blink.

Arranged what?

The answer comes before I can ask.

“Dana was never a choice. She was part of a deal.”

For one horrible second, I don’t understand. Even though I hear the words clearly, my mind refuses to assemble them into anything coherent, as if doing so would require acknowledging a reality too grotesque to accept.

“A deal,” I repeat.

He nods once. “A merger. Assets. Land. Political influence. The kind of arrangement powerful men call practical when what they really mean is profitable.” Bitterness roughens the edges of his voice. “My father had been negotiating it for months without my knowledge. By the time I realized what he’d done, the contract was final.”

I stare at him, nausea curling low in my belly. “No.”

“It’s the truth.”

“No.” The word comes out sharper this time. If I allow myself to believe what he’s confessing, the entire architecture of my life threatens to collapse. “You’re telling me that your father bartered your marriage like a business transaction?”

“That’s exactly what he did.”

“And you expect me to believe you had no choice in the matter?”

His gaze never wavers. “He threatened to give Astrid to one of his mafia cronies. There was no way I could risk calling his bluff.”

I press a hand to the edge of my desk, needing to feel something solid beneath my fingertips as the room tilts. “How old was she then? Sixteen?”

“Yes. She wouldn’t have been able to withstand something like that. She’s always been…” He pauses, searching for a word to describe his younger sister. “Fragile.”

I don’t understand how a father could be so cruel to his own children.

“I never wanted to hurt you.”

For decades, I’ve lived with a very specific version of how our story ended. Painful, yes. Both humiliating as well as devastating. But simple in that Hugh chose another woman. I built an entire life around surviving that heartache. And I vowed never to be hurt like that again.

And now the man I once loved with all my heart is standing in my office telling me that none of it had been a choice at all.

My gaze snaps back to his. “You still let me believe it.”

He flinches. “I had to.”

I laugh again, but there’s not a drop of humor in the hollowed-out sound. “Did you?”

“Evie—”