Page 61 of The Devil and the Heiress
“Very much so.” His joy at those words was diminished with her next. “I suppose an extra few hundred thousand dollars allows for some extravagance.”
“Crenshaw shared the contract negotiations with you.” Bloody bastard.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t he?” This was almost an accusation; her eyes flashed at him.
“That’s why you’ve been so cold. I understand now.”
“No, I don’t think you do. Your lying would have been enough to justify my being cold, but there is really no need to have this discussion now.”
He stared at her, trying to see some hint of the woman who had smiled up at him so sweetly and held him as if she never wanted to let him go. This woman was aloof, and though her anger was justified, he could not understand how she could so easily put her feelings for him aside. Perhaps he had been taken in by her and he had been right all along. It had been mere infatuation and it was already fading. Admittedly, he had helped it along, so he didn’t blame her.
“I negotiated the settlement for you.”
“It is always good to understand the figure the men in your life put on your worth.” Bitterness filled her voice, and she turned away from him, facing the window that looked out over the street. “But you cannot pretend it was for my benefit. I know you refused to marry me if you didn’t get what you wanted.”
“A negotiation tactic. Christ, Violet, I wanted you so badly, I ran away with you. It wasn’t the money.”
“Really?” Fire lit her eyes as she fixed him with her stare, stopping him when he would have closed the distance between them. “Then you would have run away with me had I been penniless? Had I not possessed a stock portfolio, or property in Manhattan? Had you no hope of collecting any funds?”
“Had I known you as I knew you in Yorkshire, yes.”
“Which is a fancy way of saying no.” The fire in her eyes gave way to sadness that was unbearable. He stepped toward her, but she moved away. “How convenient for your better financial sense to make a reappearance now that we are back in London.”
“Your father’s initial offer was insulting. You deserve far more than fifty thousand dollars.”
“Lucky for you we are one and the same under the law, and you were able to negotiate more money for yourself in the bargaining.”
“Violet—”
She held up a hand to stop him. “No, I understand now that this is always how it was meant to be for me.”
“You don’t understand.” He walked to her but stopped short of touching her. “You are meant to live with fine things. I would not have you give them up because of me, because I was selfish to want you for myself. What I did was wrong, and I know that now.”
She moved away from him, giving him her back as she put space between them. He hated that he had made her despise him so much. “Is this all you wanted?” she asked without facing him. “Guests will be here soon.”
He suspected she was blinking back tears, because her voice had thickened. He tightened his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her. “I have placed the funds in an account under your name. You can access it at any time. The documents have been left at the Belgravia home for you.”
“And you are on the account as well?”
“Well, yes.” He’d had to open the account and add her name to it.
“Then you can access the funds as well.”
“Yes, but the funds are yours.”
“Then they are yours, too.”
“I cannot control the laws, Violet. I only know that I want to give it to you, and you can use it as you see fit.”
“All right. I believe we should return now.” She appeared resigned, but not nearly as aloof when she turned toward him. Her face fell in dejected acceptance.
“Violet.” He sighed, reluctant to leave things like this and wanting to take her into his arms. “Let us talk. Do you not remember—”
“Christian, no.” For the first time he saw the struggle on her face. Her fight to keep her pain from showing to theworld. Her eyes glistened before she was able to blink back her tears and calm her expression. This was the Violet he knew. “We cannot talk. I’m sorry, but it’s not possible. You lied to me, and you manipulated me. I don’t know how to think of that, and the truth is that I cannot be near you right now. If we talk, then I will be lost.
“I don’t know what is wrong with me that I cannot think clearly when you are close by. I am not very sophisticated, perhaps. But when you touch me, I am not able to think as I should. I lost myself to you once, and it hurt me terribly. I cannot allow it to happen again.”
She could have stabbed him with a knife and it wouldn’t have hurt as badly. He would welcome that pain over this. “Then we are to simply exist, near each other but never with each other?”
