Page 63 of Sold to Her Enemy

“Yes!” Ava shrieks. “I did what we were always told to do! I protected our family!”

“You had no right to interfere, Ava. You did nothing other than impede my plans.” Adrian strides over to me, shaking his sister off his arm.

“Adrian, she was always following you like a stalker. How embarrassing would it have been for you to hook up for real? I solved that by sending Jana to interview her, but even after she said all that crap about you, you still want to be with her!”

“Ava, get out of my sight.” His voice is so chilly that I turn away and rub my arms.

“Adrian! I don’t want her in our life! She’s trash.”

“Her father made us millions! Do you understand that? What do you have against her, Ava?”

Ava glares at her brother, but he returns her stare coolly. “Her family was poor, Adrian. She just studied a lot and rode some horses.”

“And you just play the piano. Her father earned every penny he had.”

“Until he sold out to the mafia.”

“We don’t know what happened, Ava,” Adrian says quietly. He grabs my hand. He stares out the window into the dark garden. “I thought I knew what happened, but I didn’t. All these years that I thought you were rejecting me. You stayed away because Ava said to?”

It takes me a moment to realize the question is directed at me.

“More than said to. She told all the other girls to ignore me. She did her best to make me an outcast.”

“Are you really that jealous of her, Ava?”

“I’m not jealous!” Ava spins on her heel, her hands clutching at her side in fists.

“Adrian, it doesn’t matter. Let the past be the past,” I push the words out past a sob.

“Like hell, it doesn’t matter,” he says, taking three steps toward me and spinning me to face him. “I’ve wanted you for years, and then I loathed you for years, thinking that you thought you were too good to be with me, Mckenna. That’s not true, is it?”

My throat is so dry I can’t swallow. He’s looking at me with the full force of how he feels, passion and anger swirling in his gaze and it’s searing me.

“No, I never thought that.” My pulse races.

I want to hope that this is enough to change his feelings for me. But I’m scared to get the thing I’ve wanted for so long.

“Then why?” Adrian tilts his head. “Ava?”

“Yes. She told me that being with you would cause her too much stress and affect her piano playing.”

“She. Did. Not.”

The room starts to spin, and I grab onto Adrian’s arm.

“Ava, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I don’t regret anything. What I did, I did for this family, Adrian.”

“What you did, you did for yourself. You were jealous, Ava.” I can’t believe I am saying those words, revealing the secret I’ve kept for years. “Why can’t being a piano prodigy be enough for you? I’m sorry you’re not that smart in biology, or not a better horse rider.”

Ava runs at me, but Adrian intercepts her. “Stop it! Ava, you’ve already ripped her dress. Stop acting like this! Grow up!”

“I wasn’t jealous! I hated that mom loved her, okay? Mom never cared about the piano or my success, but she cared about the stupid riding competitions.”

“That’s ridiculous, Ava. Mom is proud of you. She wanted you to have other hobbies.”

“You don’t understand! I was born to do this!”

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