Page 105 of Say You Will

I rip open the door and stand there, panting and staring him down. His brows furrow in concern, as he places his beautiful hands on my biceps. “You were crying?”

When he starts to pull me close, I resist. “Stop.”

He steps back and drops his hands. “Tell me what’s happening.”

“I read your texts. And your list.”

He frowns. “I see. If you’ll forgive me,Ihaven’t read them fully yet. Would you like to tell me what the problem is, and why you’re angry?”

I laugh bitterly. “Classic. Gaslighting 101. Up your game and throw in an accusation about me invading your privacy. You’re still in amateur territory.”

A muscle flexes in his jaw. “I gave you my passcode. I can hardly complain when you use it.”

“I know you’re enacting some master plan to trick me into marrying you so you can get those shares. I know none of it was real.”

He steps closer, crowding me. “It wasn’t real?”

He props both of his hands flat against the wall on either side of my head and leans closer. “All of it was real.”

“Stop. Lying,” I scream and shove him away. Oliver runs in the room and stands at my feet. “Everything. The way you held my hand. The eye contact. The compliments, and pretending I was important.” My voice cracks, and I shove the hurt down. He doesn’t get to see me break down over this. “Cooking my favorite food. Our date to the pumpkin farm wasn’t some fun whim. You didn’t introduce me to your grandparents as a coincidence.”

“You are important. You’reeverything. Just because I felt more comfortable with a game plan in place doesn’t mean what I was doing wasn’t real. It sure as fuck wasn’t all planned. I’ve gone off-script with you so often that the script is pointless. I didn’t count how long I maintained eye contact with you because I wouldn’t have been able to remember to do it. I was too busy being distracted by your eyes.”

“I’m not marrying you. Go find Sydney and ask her. She’s way more practical than I am. You won’t have to work so hard. She’ll take your money in a heartbeat.”

His chest rises and falls, as he glares back at me with fury to match my own. “I don’t want anyone but you.”

“You can’t have me.”

He shakes his head. “It’s you or no one.”

A crack forms in my rage, and I work to shore it back up. When my anger is gone, the only thing left will be pain. “Then I guess it’s no one.”

He wraps his hands around the back of his neck and paces. “What do you need from me that I’m not giving you? Tell me, and I’ll do it.”

“I need you to tell your grandmother you don’t want those shares. And I need you to sit there like a good boy when she gives them to your cousin.”

He stops walking and faces me with a frustrated frown. “You have no idea what you’re asking for. MPD is my grandfather’s legacy. This family can’t afford to walk away from that company. Even if we could, Lawrence likes to buy up properties he doesn’t even have plans to use. He’ll artificially inflate the market until people who have lived in communities for generations will no longer be able to afford even the taxes on their own homes. I’ve seen his track record. He buys up every small, independently-owned hotel he can in a community. Then he shuts them down and sells them off for parts to eliminate the competition.”

His words arrest me, and I frown, blinking rapidly. Because . . . surely not.It’s a coincidence.It has to be. And yet, it makes perfect sense.

I cover my lower face with my hands before I drop them. “Lawrence owns hotels?”

Henry shakes his head slightly. “Yes.”

“What’s your cousin’s last name? What does he look like?”

He tilts his head slightly to the side in confusion. “Lawrence Kingston. He’s thirty-four. Blond.”

I drop my head into my hands briefly, then lift it, and search the room for Henry’s iPad. Finding it on the bedside table, I do a Google search, typing “Leo Kingston” into the search bar.

Henry looks over my shoulder at the screen.

No one who looks anything like the man I met shows up in the results. So I type “Lawrence Kingston.” And there he is, smiling back at me in a publicity photo taken in the lobby of one of his hotels. I could read the articles about him and his hotels, but I don’t need or want to.

“I didn’t know his last name. I assumed the man your father wanted you to date was older and someone in the fashion industry,” Henry says.

A bitter laugh punches out of me. “Your cousin saw our photos online, realized you were closing in on your goal, and tried to insert himself between us.”

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