"You brought this on yourself. This is what happens when you cling to something that was never yours."
He walked out without a backward glance.
Yes.
I brought it on myself. I fell for someone I never should have.
But he was hardly innocent.
When I'd asked to break off the engagement, he was the one who chose. Between inheriting the family empire under Christine Swanson's terms or cutting ties with the Swansons entirely, he chose the inheritance. He chose the arranged marriage.
A man without the spine to protect the woman he loved, yet too greedy to give up the wealth and status, so he used someone else as a shield.
He was just as despicable.
The noise and the crowd drained away around me.
I took a cab to the Swanson estate.
Christine sat sipping her nightly bird's nest soup, the picture of elegance. On the table beside her lay a check and a voluntary property-transfer agreement.
"Sign, and I'll give you half now. Once Victor and the Pemberton girl successfully register their marriage tomorrow, you'll get the other half."
I said nothing. This woman, who had once held my hand and whispered all those warm, intimate words, coaxing me to be her daughter-in-law, now looked down at me from above.