Page 30 of Threaded Lies

“Thanks for the clarity.” I roll my eyes. “How did I ever live before I met you?”

“You did,” he says softly. “You scrapped and clawed and fought on uneven and majorly biased footing. And then when I showed up, I helped level the playing field for you.”

Why do his words bring tears to my eyes? Because he’s right. Because he knew it, gained my trust, and then screwed me over anyway. Because he’s standing here before me with a straight face and a pocket full of loaded lies.

I swallow over the lump lodged in my throat. “I didn’t need you to fix anything for me. Ever.”

“Did New York mean nothing to you, Rowan? Or has all of this simply been your way of using me to get what you want?”

I blink back both tears and the shock his words cause. “Get what I want? Sure. Yep. That’s all it was.”

“Seems like it to me.” Bitterness coats his every word.

“I could ask the same of you.”

“I’m not the one who’s wearing another man’s ring, though, am I? What happened? How did we go from New York to this? From kissing goodbye on the tarmac to finding out you’re engaged to that fucking prick?”

I stare at him and my chest physically hurts because there is nothing Chad can give me that Holden can’t. At least until Holden signed those papers and screwed me over.

But I’m not supposed to know that.

This is Westmore, after all, where the men make and break all the rules, and the women get screwed by them.

“I’m not doing this here,” I whisper, taking the easy way out. Blame it on being in the office rather than tell the truth.

“Of course you’re not. Convenient.” He throws his hands up. “I deserve a fucking answer,” his voice thunders and no doubt employees could hear that, but the five words give nothing away.

“I deserve a lot of answers, Holden, but this isn’t the time nor is it the place to have this discussion. And truth be told, I don’t owe you shit. Not an explanation. Not a reason. Not—”

“Stop talking in nonanswers,” he shouts and I swear, by the frustration etched in the lines of his face, if he could shake me by the shoulders he would. He pulls down on the back of his neck, tension emanating off his entire body. “Just tell me one thing. What is it he’s given you that I can’t?”

Honesty. I open my mouth and then close it.

Don’t cry.

Don’t you dare fucking cry.

“Seems you can’t figure the answer to that either,” he murmurs when I don’t respond. “It looks like we’re no better off than when I walked in here.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Your loss.” He holds his hands up and gives me a nod, his eyes locked on mine for a beat before he turns on his heel and walks to the door of my office. “Good thing I make it a point to never fucking care. You sure as shit proved me right there.” And with those words he strides out of my office without looking back.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Holden Knight sad, but I swear to God he is—and I don’t know what to do with that information.

Just like I don’t know what to do with the fact that I currently feel like all the women I’ve ridiculed in the past. The ones who overlooked what a man did to them because of how he made them feel otherwise.

Too weak. Too whiny. Too smitten by a man that they should steer clear of because he betrayed them.

And yet I’m standing here staring at an empty doorway and after the man I am desperate to be wrong about.

But I saw the documents.

The betrayal was in black and white.

But that doesn’t make my heart understand it any easier.

TEN