Holly frowned. “Why would you send it to his father?”
Liam arched a startled brow. Hell, had Holly not realized why she’d been chosen as Ted’s bride?
He swallowed a curse. As if he needed to be the bearer of even more bad news.
“Theodore the Senior has been obnoxiously obsessed with his desire to climb the social ladder,” Liam grudgingly revealed. “His son is well aware he would be disinherited if he showed up for Sunday dinner with a woman who has nothing to offer the Wentworth clan beyond her obvious fertility.”
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, pain darkening her eyes as she abruptly turned to pace toward the glass wall.
“God.”
“Holly, please,” he husked, not sure what he was pleading for.
Understanding. Forgiveness. A second chance.
“You let me get into my wedding dress and wait with two hundred guests for a groom who was never going to show up.” She slowly turned to reveal her accusing expression. “Do you know how embarrassing that was?”
Liam grimaced. “I truly thought he would call off the wedding, princess. I never dreamed he would be enough of a bastard to simply not show up.”
A sharp, humorless laugh was wrenched from her throat. “What is it with me?” she demanded, her voice thick with tears. “Is there any man who isn’t going to betray me?”
Liam recoiled, feeling as if he’d taken a physical blow. “I never betrayed you.”
The cognac eyes blazed with fury. “You let me be publically humiliated and then you swooped in like some knight in shining armor and convinced me you genuinely cared.”
Hell. When she put it like that…
“I do care,” he rasped. “I love you.”
She made a sound of disgust, heading toward the elevator. “If that’s your idea of love, you can keep it.”
“Holly.”
She stabbed the button that opened the steel doors. Entering the elevator, she turned to send him a warning glare.
“Just stay away from me.”
Liam was in instant pursuit. He understood her need to get away from him, but she was in no condition to be on her own.
Not when she was so upset.
But he’d barely managed more than two steps when his arm was being grabbed in a painful grip.
“Let her go,” Luc commanded.
Liam sent his companion a death glare. “Fuck that.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Luc warned, his fingers digging into Liam’s arm with enough force to leave bruises.
He hissed as the elevator doors closed, whisking Holly away from him.
“Damn you,” he snarled. “She needs me.”
“Right now she needs some time to cool down and think clearly,” Luc warned.
He was right.
Holly was too hurt to listen to his frantic justifications.
That didn’t, however, make it any easier to let her walk away.
“You just want to keep us apart,” he accused the man who was looking at him as if sizing him up for a coffin.
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t want to protect my sister?”
“I’m not the one you need to protect her from,” Liam pointed out in rough tones.
He was a long way from forgiving the Angeli clan for not bothering to stop the engagement.
“You hurt her,” Luc accused.
Liam jerked his arm free. “That was never my intention,” he muttered.
His companion wasn’t impressed. “Why didn’t you just tell her the truth?”
In hindsight it was the obvious solution.
At the time he’d been terrified of losing her.
“She already blamed me for stealing the company she thought was going to be hers,” he said, shoving his fingers through his damp hair.
Luc breathed a curse. “It was never going to be hers. I told her that Vigo was playing games with her.”
Liam grimaced, remembering Holly’s heartbreakingly fragile expression when she discussed her prick of a father.
“You know that, and I know that, but she’s spent her entire life feeling as if she was on the outside looking in. She wanted to believe that she’d finally earned a place in her family.”
Luc gave a sharp shake of his head, his face hard with disgust.
“Trust me, being on the outside is the perfect place to be when it comes to my dysfunctional family.”
“Holly only knows that she wasn’t considered good enough to live with her father in his big mansion, or to be asked over for Christmas dinner,” Liam said, unable to understand any father who would use his children as if they were pawns on a chessboard. His own dad might not have had a fortune to pass along to his kids, but he’d loved them with a fierce devotion that meant more than any amount of money. “So when she thought he was going to name her as his heir, it made her feel as if she’d finally won a place in his heart.”
“The bastard doesn’t have a heart,” Luc informed him.
“Yeah well, she blamed me for snatching away her chance at happiness.” His jaw clenched as he remembered her explosive fury when it was announced that Vigo had sold his company to none other than Liam Conner. Thank god she had never been a big fan of carrying concealed weapons. “Can you imagine how she would have reacted if I’d been the one to tell her that her perfect fiancé was screwing around with another woman?”
“Fine. I get it,” Luc grudgingly conceded. “But why didn’t you come to me?”
Liam turned to pace toward the kitchen, reaching into his fridge to pull out two beers.
It was early, but hell, if he ever needed alcohol it was now.
“Believe it or not, I fell in love with Holly the night I met her,” he admitted, returning to his companion to offer him one of the bottles.
They both took a minute to enjoy the crisp beer before Luc heaved a resigned sigh.
“Actually I do believe you.” He polished off the beer and set the bottle on a nearby table. “Did you tell Holly?”
“She knew.” Liam twisted his lips in a rueful smile. There was no one in the room the night they met that hadn’t been aware of his stunned fascination with the dark-haired beauty. “But I’m a gambler from a family that doesn’t have a drop of blue blood. She was convinced that princely Theodore was the husband that would impress Vigo.”
“The worthless son of a bitch,” Luc growled.
“She refused to admit that we were destined to be together. I wanted—” Liam bit off his words.
Luc narrowed his gaze. “What?”