Page 166 of Her Beast

“I thought you’d fallen asleep,” he said, shifting her in his arms so that he could see her tear-stained, but still unbearably lovely, face.

She was staring at something over his shoulder, not meeting his gaze. “Are you?” she repeated. “Is that why you thought I’d hate you? Because you’re going to kill them?

“No, I won’t kill them.” He paused and admitted, “At least not personally. But I have engineered matters so that they will do it for me.” He cleared his throat. “I suspect they’ve already begun. Sheehan has gone missing and Nadine is no longer at your father’s house.”

“He’s not my father,” she said, the words lacking heat—or any emotion at all.

Her blue eyes finally slid to his. For the very first time, Malcolm could not tell what she was thinking.

“How much did you hear?” Malcolm grimaced. “And see?”

“All of it.”

He sighed. “Let me guess: Smith.”

She roused herself and Malcolm admitted that he liked the anger that flared in her gaze better than her dead, lifeless stare—even if that anger seemed directed at him. “Why didn’t you tell me about all this? Why was it Smith who told me?”

“Because Smith is an interfering, manipulative—”

She snorted. “Manipulative? This from the man who engineered a situation where four people will exact revengeforhim?”

“That’s right, Julia. And I won’t stop what I’ve started—no matter how much you beg me to do so.”

“You think I want tostopwhat you’ve started, Malcolm? They deserve to die—all of them.” The pure menace in her soft voice made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“You might think that now, Julia, but Brian is your father and Thomas Harlow stood as father to you, he raised you—”

“Brian Harlowkilledmy mother! The only person who might have loved me and Richard!” Her chest heaved with plenty of emotion now, her eyes pure blue fire. “Do you think I could ever forgive that?”

Before he could speak, she went on, the poison pouring out of her. “As forThomas.Don’t you know what sort offatherhe was? He exiled my brother and then lied to me and plotted to put Richard in an asylum while forcing me into a marriage with a man I hate.” Her eyes narrowed. “And on that subject—”

“I was lying to Brian,” Malcolm assured her. “I’ve got the deed to the house in my drawer—with your name on it. I bought it from the man your—er, Tommy—signed it over to.”

Her expression, so hard and wild a few seconds before, softened. “You did that?”

“Bloody hell, Julia! You didn’t think I’d let Richard be tossed out of his house?”

She threw her arms around his neck. “You did that for me, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.”

Her body tensed and she made a muffled noise that sounded suspiciously like a gulp.

Malcolm prayed that she wasn’t going to cry again.

But when she released him a moment later, her eyes were blessedly dry.

“All my life I tried to make Thomas Harlow love me—or evenlikeme. Instead, he belittled me and ignored Richard. He beat me so badly I couldn’t leave his house forweeks—and not only once, Malcolm. Those years away at school weren’t only a revelation when it came to sensual matters, I also saw that my life with Nadine and my—and with Thomas—was neither healthy nor normal. Their cruelty manifested itself in a hundred small ways and culminated with what he would have done to Richard evenafterI bartered my future away.”

She held his gaze captive, magnificent in her fury. “How could you think I would hate you for punishing people such as them?”

He hesitated, and then said, “I’ll admit I didn’t know about what Brian did to your mother until today—thanks to Smith—which certainly changed a great deal.”

“Mr. Smith told you?”

“Yes, right after he was tellingyouthings, apparently.”

She shook her head, marveling. “Does Mr. Smith knoweverything?”

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