“You are insane. You almost killed me! I’m going to call security!” William hissed out, grappling for the call button.
“No. You aren’t.” Lennox easily swiped it out of his reach.
“Give it to me.”
“Look who is the one scared and crying for help now?” Lennox snarled at him. “Something all the women you assaulted were not able to do.”
“They came willingly! Not my fault they were all so eager to fall to their knees to work off their debts.”
“Willingly?” I bolted forward. “What part of me saying no was willing?”
“You came to my office. You knew exactly what you were getting into, so don’t act prudish and shocked. You wanted it too.”
“You bastard!” I reached for his throat.
“Spencer.” Lennox grabbed my hands, pulling me back.
“Let go!”
“No. I don’t want you going to jail for this worthless piece of shit.”
“You are both crazy.” William crawled at the air for the remote. “Give it back to me!”
“Not a chance.” Lennox scoffed, his head shaking. “Spencer has a few questions to ask you. You behave like a good boy, answer them truthfully and to her satisfaction, and I might hand this back to you.”
William’s eyes darted between us on each side of his bed, realizing he was the one at a disadvantage this time.
“Spit it out then.” He huffed, his ego filling him up like an inflatable tube.
Licking my lips, I dug into my jacket pocket, pulling out the set of pictures.
Once you know for sure, you can’t unknow it…you will carry that burden forever. Lennox’s warning filtered through my mind before I ground my teeth together, flipping the images to face William.
He leaned forward, his eyesight not good enough to make them out from a distance, but I didn’t let my grip go on them.
Something shifted in his demeanor. The egotistical perfume that reeked from him dropped in an instant. His trembling hands gripped the side of the pictures.
“I haven’t looked at these in so long,” he muttered to himself.
“That’s my aunt.” I pointed at the picture, still hoping he’d correct me, telling me it was some other woman in his bed. “Right?”
His mouth compressed, his hands starting to shake more.
“Tell me,” I ordered.
“Yes,” he replied so quietly I almost didn’t hear him, his fingers sliding gently over her youthful face. She was lying on her stomach in only a pair of underwear and heels, peering salaciously at the cameraman, surrounded by S&M toys.
“You and Aunt Lauren had a relationship then?” I cringed.
“Yes.” He sounded lost and far away, his gaze still on her face.
“Did you blackmail her? Force her into this?” I didn’t know what answer I wanted, if any would be okay.
“No.” His head shot up, anger igniting his cheeks and eyes. “You may not believe this, but she came to me. Pursued me! She was bored in her marriage. It started as just a fun fling for both of us.” He licked his lip. “But we fell in love.”
A few words and it felt like he punched through my chest. It was hard for me to believe my aunt could love this man.
“She was the one in control. She dictated when I saw her, what our relationship was. I was helpless against her.” He swallowed, looking away from the images. “Take those away. I don’t want to see them anymore.”
I blinked, bewildered at his reaction. It was not put on, the heartbreak still fresh, like it was recent, not over twenty years ago. Out of all the scenarios, I had not planned on this one.
“You still love her,” I uttered without thought.
His forehead wrinkled with anger, but he didn’t counter my claim.
Holy shite.
“What happened?”
Silence.
“Tell me!”
“She used me!” he spat at me, life firing up his withered body. “Deceived me. Made me think she loved me too. Told me she’d leave her controlling husband, who had yet to even knock her up after seven years of marriage. I was willing to give it all up for her! I didn’t care about anything but having her. I didn’t care about the money, house, or our titles. We’d move abroad and become husband and wife. We both knew we either chose love or our stature. Couldn’t have both.”
I couldn’t move or speak, sensing every word was truth.
“Your aunt chose money.” He sneered. “I was so pathetic I was willing to be her lover on the side simply to be near her, to keep her. But she came back one night, told me she and Fredrick were having a baby, and to leave her alone. She never contacted me or acted like she knew me after that. It was so easy for her to cut me off. To walk away.”
My throat tightened as I pulled out my cell, a picture of a face already up on my screen.
“She destroyed me. Took my heart, my soul, and crushed it.” Wrath lashed out of him like venom. The man he was today was because of my Aunt Lauren. He had the choice to become what he did, but I saw the dark, raging fire and pain she slashed across his heart.
He wasn’t a strong enough man; he let it swallow him, twist him with ugliness and cruelty.
“So…you came after us on purpose?”
He snorted. “I didn’t even have to try. Your uncle gambled what was left of your fortune on his own. His greed and desire to rise above his station was always going to be his downfall. I began to see they were perfect for each other. Petty, hateful, and shallow. Both obsessed and desperate for affluence and wealth.
“Like you.”
“I became the man she wanted.”
I didn’t let myself feel any sympathy for the guy who was holding our family hostage, ready to tear us down because of petty grievances—the man who had continually tried to blackmail me, Lauren’s own niece, and bring me to my knees.
As if he came after me on purpose…
“Fuck.” I shook my head, more things clicking in my head. “Theo and I…I must have been a dream come true.”
“Like it was fated. I looked at you, only a few years younger than she had been when we met…” He stared into my eyes with uninhibited malice. “I wanted to destroy you. Her. Your whole family. Especially the son they had. I didn’t have to lay eyes on him to know he’d be like his wanker father and bitch mother. I wanted her to know, to feel the agony and recognize it was me who took her son’s future away from him, who stripped your whole family of their wealth and title. I lived for that moment to feel her grief and regret.”
“You’ve never met Landen?”
“No. Saw him from afar a few times. It was the closest I ever wanted to get to that little twat.”
I felt it rushing up over my tongue, knowing I couldn’t stop it, though it was about to change everything.
“That twat…the one you are set on destroying? Is your own son.”
“What?” Lord William’s eyes tempered, peering at me with confusion.
In my hand, I flipped the picture of my cousin around, one of us at school, a cheeky smile on his face. In my other hand, I held up the picture of young William, his smile matching my cousin’s seamlessly. Father and son. The tiny doubt I held onto vanished in that moment.