“Christ.” Turning, Liam stepped toward Holly, his expression impossible to read. “Let me explain.”
Holly held up her hand, warning him not to come any closer.
She was desperately trying to think clearly. Having him close would make that impossible.
She waited for him to come to a grudging halt before speaking.
“You said that Ted was lying.”
Liam shoved his hands in the front pockets of his shorts, his expression composed, although there was no missing his clenched jaw and the rigidity of his body.
“I never threatened his business,” he said with a hint of disgust. “He has a hundred employees that depend on him for a paycheck.”
Perhaps naïvely, Holly believed him.
Liam had a genuine concern for people who struggled to make it from paycheck to paycheck.
She couldn’t imagine any scenario where he would deliberately put them out of work. Not in this economy.
“But…” She had to stop and clear her throat. “You did threaten him?”
He gave a small dip of his head. “Yes.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Luc growled from behind them.
Holly never allowed her gaze to stray from Liam’s lean face, inanely noting it looked ashen in the afternoon sunlight.
“Why?” she breathed.
With jerky motions he moved toward a low, polished coffee table in front of the couch. Bending down he yanked open a narrow drawer and pulled out a manila folder. Then, pausing to draw in a deep breath, he straightened to return to Holly.
“Because of this,” he said, flipping open the folder and grabbing a glossy eight-by-ten picture.
He held it out, not insisting she take it and not trying to keep it from her.
The decision of whether she learned the truth was entirely up to her.
Her gut twisted with a sickening sense of premonition.
There was a painful silence as Holly wavered between gruesome curiosity and the absolute certainty that she didn’t want to see what was in the file.
Finally she reached to snatch the photo out of his hand, her brows drawing together as she studied the close-up of a pretty young woman with brown hair and pale blue eyes.
“Who is this?” she demanded in confusion.
“Your beloved fiancé’s mistress,” Liam said, his voice tight.
She jerked her head up to meet his steady gaze. “Mistress?”
“What the hell?” Luc growled, moving to stand at her side.
Holly ignored her brother, instead concentrating on the massive task of maintaining her composure.
“I didn’t expect him to be a virgin,” she managed to rasp. “I’m sure you’ve had plenty of women in your past.”
Liam reached into the file folder of pain and pulled out another photo, handing it to Holly.
“This was taken three days ago.”
Holly impatiently glanced at the image of the brown-haired woman stepping out of a brick building with Ted at her side. Her former-fiancé had one arm around her shoulders and one hand on her stomach.
Her very large stomach.
Holly made a small sound of distress. “She’s pregnant.”
“It’s their second child,” Liam admitted, offering her yet another photo.
This one was of Ted in a small park as he pushed a young boy on a swing.
The photos fell from her fingers as Holly suddenly felt as if she was being smothered.
It wasn’t as if she’d ever thought that she and Ted shared some grand, epic love. Still…
How could he play the devoted fiancé while he was creating a family with another woman?
It was obscene.
“I don’t understand,” she at last managed to choke out. “If he loves this woman enough to have children with her, why would he marry me?”
Liam tossed the rest of the file on a chair behind him.
“Because she’s a waitress at the local diner and you’re Vigo Angeli’s daughter.”
***
Liam was furious.
With Theodore Wentworth Junior and his damned games.
With fate that had chosen to steal the happiness that had bubbled through him like the finest champagne until Luc had come barging into the apartment.
But most of all, with himself.
He was a gambler. He never bet against the odds.
Except when it came to this female.
And now his dreams were threatening to go bust.
Curling his hands into tight fists so he didn’t do something stupid like throw Holly over his shoulder and lock her in his bedroom, he waited for her to at last break the brittle silence.
“How long?” she husked.
He frowned. “What?”
Her cognac eyes glittered with tears she refused to shed. “How long have you known?”
He flinched. Christ. It felt as if someone was twisting a knife in his gut.
Or maybe he was just wishing he could be stabbed.
It would be less painful.
“Since the two of you became engaged.” He forced himself to admit the truth.
There would be no more lies.
She flinched, her hand pressed to her chest. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“Would you have believed me?” he demanded. “Or would you have assumed I was just trying to cause trouble?”
Her jaw clenched, revealing she was in no mood to accept his perfectly reasonable explanation.
“So you let me make a fool of myself for months?”
Liam glanced toward the silent Luc.
“It was your family’s place to make sure your fiancé was worthy of you,” he said.
Luc grimaced. “He’s right. I failed you.”
“This has nothing to do with you.” Holly waved a silencing hand toward her brother, unconsciously looking as imperious as Vigo as she faced Liam with her chin high and her pale face hard with a stubborn expression. “How did you get the file?” she demanded of Liam.
He shrugged. “I hired a private investigator.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
She frowned, but she didn’t try to pretend as if she didn’t realize he’d been fiercely determined to lure her away from Ted from the beginning.
“You just said you didn’t use the file because you didn’t think that I would believe you.”
“I said I didn’t intend to show it to you,” he clarified, his hand lifting to touch her, only to be yanked back when she took a sharp step away. Shit. He flinched, regret slicing through him like a dagger. “But I’d hoped that the bastard would grow some balls and do the right thing. When he didn’t, I paid him a visit and warned him that if he didn’t confess the truth I was handing the file over to his father.”