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“I’ll open it.”

He reached for the letter but Gwen shifted backwards a step.

She narrowed her eyes at the paper, her slim shoulders drawing back. “No. I’ll do it.” Some of the starch returned to her voice. “Whatever he’s done, we’ll deal with it as we have with all the others. Better even than at the start, because now… I have you.”

The fragile column of her throat bobbed with a swallow as she looked up at Michael, her gaze brimming with faith.

Resolutely, she turned her attention back to the letter, just before his face could betray him, and thank God for it. She did something to him, made deception feel awkward in a way it never had before—heavy and unnatural in the face of her unremitting guilelessness. Breaking the seal, she unfolded the parchment.

Gwen read silently, but he could hear the words anyway, could feel them scratch like a cat’s claws through his mind as though she’d spoken them aloud. When she finished, she lowered the letter and released a slow, trembling breath through parted lips, the sole source of colour on an otherwise bloodless face.

This was it. There was no way back from here. All that remained was the path he’d carved. The one he’d chosen for them both.

She went absolutely still.

Then, with the swiftness of starlings ascending in one awe-inspiring flock, all that rosy colour flooded her face once more. Her lips pressed together in a slash of determined outrage, and he watched her gather her wavering resolve until it set like steel.

Sweet, indomitable fool.

Singularly remarkable woman.

Gwen shoved the parchment into his chest and tore off, pacing about the room.

The page was crinkled from where she had gripped it, little wrinkles of rage adjacent to his own tidy writing. He smoothed them with his thumb as his gaze skimmed the lines, At least it would be over soon; then he could pack all these horrible, conflicting emotions away. She would thrash and strain against the binds he had tied with his own two hands… and then she would succumb to exhaustion.

Clever as she was, these knots would not be undone. He’d simply tied too many, accumulated Walter’s outstanding debts one by one until they formed a noose from which there was no escape. Then, after purchasing a controlling interest in her bank, he’d stripped her of her last avenue of financial escape.

God, what had he done. He was a monster.

Balanced on the razor’s edge of victory, Michael could see it now. So bloody clearly.

Gwen—spent and resigned... diminished. And just the thought… It was wrong. Unnatural and… something. Something he’d never felt and didn’t even know how to define. He shut his eyes against thought but she was there behind his lids.

Somehow he’d lost his objectivity along the way. He couldn’t deny it any longer. She mattered to him and there would be no way to walk away unscathed. He’d gotten too close—a spider caught in his own web.

Michael opened his eyes to find her still pacing the room, her chest heaving in short, shallow pants.

“Four thousand pounds! Even if the auction is wildly successful, I won’t have that much ready coin on hand. I was counting on today’s proceeds to settle the debts he left for the yard, and now…” She stopped abruptly, teeth pressing red crescents into her lower lip, then shook her head.

Any moment now, she would say it. Selling was the only remaining option. She wouldn’t drag all the men who counted on her down with her failing business.

She would accept change for her beloved Llanelli over its demise.

And then would come the part he had been stupidly looking forward to when he first traveled to Wales. He would tell her who he was. He would watch understanding dawn as she realised just how thoroughly he had outmaneuvered her.

It was always his favorite part. When his opponent finally accepted that he had won. When there could be no overlooking him. Because his cleverness, his determination, his ruthless pursuit of victory had rendered him irrefutably worthy of their notice.

And he would have that moment now. He would have Llanelli too.

Yet the prospect of hearing Gwen surrender it brought him no satisfaction whatsoever. She would see him alright… all of him… and he would feel her disappointment throb down to the very marrow of his bones.

Why should he subject himself to that? He didn’t have to. He could play his part to the end. Remain “Michael,” the sympathetic partner through their defeat until he was safely back in London. Send Smythe to finish the deal. Sure, she would figure out who he was eventually, but he didn’t need to be around to see it. He could spare himself the discomfort.

Still, his stomach pitched and rolled, refusing to settle.

But if not that, then what? What did he bloody want?

Her gaze lifted to his, waiting for him to say something. To offer some solution. Michael couldn’t think. Not with his heart pounding in his chest. He forced his jaw to unclench and pulled a slow breath in and out of his lungs.