I shook my head. “You don’t understand.” I tried to tell her he’d known who I was from the get-go. Angelica probably alerted him after mind compelling me during the interview. He didn’t coincidentally happen to nearly run me over. It was all fucking staged.
I gurgled and tried a different approach. “Surname.”
Tommy was fluent in Basi.
She gasped. “He knew you were a Le Spyre the entire time?”
I stared at her.
“That motherfucker. I mean, it’s a speck in comparison to the rest, but it just makes him even more cold and heartless.”
A speck compared to the rest?
Hmm, I suppose she was right.
Then why did Kyros lying feel like the worst part? My chest tightened suddenly, and I took a half-hearted sip of wine as my breath quickened.
“I just can’t believe he’d do that to me. After everything,” I said into the silence.
“What do you mean by everything?”
Being together in the basement. Him waiting for me at the theme park. Losing his shit when the triplets attacked Rhys and me. His struggle over his alpha power was a constant thing, but somewhere along the line, I’d thought other feelings were pushing him toward me. Now, I knew otherwise. All that bullshit was plain possessiveness, nothing more and nothing less. He did those things for his family, to win Ingenium. I was just human collateral.
I forced down the lump in my throat.
It came back double force, and I dragged in a painful gasp of air.
Tommy’s face dropped. “Basil, did he touch you?”
Did he ever.
“Yes, but it wasn’t that. It’s just.” I didn’t know. The bond between us made things so unclear—trying to gauge what I magically felt and really felt was nearly impossible.
“You don’t love him, do you?” Tommy’s hazel eyes were wide and fixed on me.
My horror echoed her own, but it was accompanied by a stinging burn behind my eyes. “God, no,” I answered hoarsely. “It was just an extra low blow when I discovered the truth. He played his part well, girl.”
The lump wasn’t going away.
My heartbeat took off as my chest clamped.
My rasping voice faded to a whisper. “I’ve done a lot of stupid shit, Tom. Believe me. I’ve had to wake up real quick. When I found out the truth, he made me feel like I was waking up on the street again.”
Powerless. Weak.
I tipped my head back and blinked rapidly as the crushing betrayal of what he’d done rolled over me. For the first time, I allowed myself to feel the sting without fury or shame overriding my hurt.
When all was said and done, I was upset because he betrayed me.
He’d taken off my clothes, telling me I was perfection while knowing he was stabbing me in the back.
My vision blurred as my eyes filled.
“I’d kill him if I could,” she forced out. “With my bare hands.”
I reached to set my glass down, searching blindly for the lip of the small table I’d dragged from the corner.
“Basi?”
“It’s okay.” The words didn’t come out.
“Basil, if you’re hurt. You can tell me.”
A choked sound tore through my clamped lips.
Then another.
I was so hurt.
I clutched my chest, incapable of holding in the pitiful sobs and harsh, raking inhales between. Being terrorised, tortured, controlled, and toyed with. Rhys’s death. The mass grave of the Indebted.
Lying to Tommy. Watching her walk away.
Losing my grandmother forever. Staring down at her corpse knowing I wasn’t there. That she’d never speak again.
I’d never let the tears get so far. Not in so long.
There were too many to call back.
One slid down my cheek. Dashing it away, the tear was replaced by another. More came until they flowed freely.
“Holy fuck, Basi—” Tom whispered. “You’re crying.”
This is what crying felt like? I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think through the pain filling my chest.
Yep.
Turned out twelve years of practice couldn’t stop the tears now.
10
“Let me get this straight, Miss Tetley,” Angelica said from across the wrought iron table. “You wish to return to Live Right?”
I arched my brows. “It’s Miss Le Spyre.”
“Your real name is hard to get used to.”
Uh-huh. I bet.
“We both know that’s not the case.”
Angelica’s polite smile dropped. “It’s safer to go by Tetley outside of the tower. Especially if you mean to stay with Live Right. Clan Fyrlia is uninformed of your true identity. Kyros desires to keep it that way.”
With the spies in his tower, that desire would last about half a second.
We sat at one of my favourite brunch haunts in Green. One of those Instagram-worthy places with plants hanging everywhere and heaps of cute nooks.
I sipped at my hazelnut green tea. “If I return—”
“—Which is why exactly?”
My answer would be important in determining how closely they watched me for the next few weeks. “I’m not sure you deserve an answer, really. But I appreciate the voice recorder, so I’ll be extremely honest with you this once. This doesn’t get back to Kyros. I mean it, Angelica.”
She’d tell him immediately. The vampire was a dark horse, but her matchmaking ways made her predictable.
Angelica took a dainty sip of her jasmine tea. “Of course.”
Pfft.
“I left my estate for a reason. I hate the rich bastards I have for neighbours. I need to be onsite there now to manage estate affairs. A lot of people rely on me for income, but my loathing for the rich will not ever change. Added to that, my last family member just died. The house is empty without her. Despite my greatest efforts, I have become an idle rich woman.”
Angelica hummed. “Why not take up pottery?”
“Do I look like the pottery type, Angelica?”
She smirked and made no answer. “The blood bond has nothing to do with this decision?”
No, but I wanted her to think so. I’d just waited for her to bring it up.
Pressing my lips together, I narrowed my gaze. “Nothing.”
Her smirk widened. “You’re one of our best realtors. I’m certain Kyros will accept your return.”
Oh, goody.
“And,” she added. “He’ll stop moping around the tower. His temper has been shocking the last two weeks.”
He’d stop moping, alright. In fact, Kyros would be freakin’ ecstatic when he realised what I had in store for him.
Angelica finished her tea. “We’ll see you tomorrow then?”
I finished my drink and set the porcelain cup down. “I have a few conditions.”
She froze, already standing.
I waited patiently as she resumed her seat.
“I have the Le Spyre estate to manage.” It was true. Even with the string of CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and other senior management titles between my presidential position and other employees, and even though my major companies were established and the teams well-oiled units, video calls and emails occupied several hours each day.
“I will work for Live Right twenty hours a week. Secondly, I will not live in the tower. Each day I will return to my home with my Vissimo guards.”