Page 91 of Scandalous Heiress
“Very well!Take her!”Richard howled.“No matter, Victor.I’ll let it out that I had her.A sweet meat, she was too.”
He stopped, anger molten in his veins.Yes, this man—his brother— would do that.Never stopping at anything to win his way.
No matter.Victor would make it right for her.He would.
“I’ll fix it so you can’t have her.”
Victor had told himself as they rode here—had chanted silently his Buddhist mantra—that he would not succumb to his brother’s taunts.He caught Ada closer and put one foot out.
“I had Alicia, Victor.”
Red rage blinded him.He paused to center himself.But he fought back, concentrated on a white ball of purpose.White peace that he had trained long ago to sooth his nerves, rolled up his backbone and neck, over his crown to his forehead and down his nose and chin to his heart and his stomach to replace hischi.He praised his good fortune that he could save his serenity–and not charge up the stairs.If he maintained no control over himself, he could have killed his brother then and there.Would have.Then he would have paid prices for this catastrophe that only Richard should pay.And pay in full he would.
He stepped down and away from the past.
“She was a nasty piece, your wife.”Richard tittered like a child.“So eager.So agreeable to every little act.”
The revelation was one that in another day and time, might have been his undoing.Might have been the death sentence of Richard.And his own.But the crimes Alicia committed against him were old.Desiccated.Dust in the wind.So insignificant that he no longer felt their vicious stab.
“I’ll tell the town that too!”Richard yelled, desperate now.“You bastard.You can’t deprive me of what I want.”
“Watch me.”His words reverberated in the cavernous foyer.Then he paused while his brother’s butler scurried to swing wide the front door for him.
He emerged into the night air, free of the past, holding the promise of his future in his embrace.
