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“You know I wouldn’t lie to you about something like this. I wouldn’t lie to you about anything.”
“My dad wouldn’t hurt an innocent person?—”
“He did.” Now his voice was no longer gentle, but callous. “What little hope I had left that my parents and I would reconcile disappeared that night. My parents barely tolerated my presence before, but now they refuse to be in the same room with me. My father’s arm will be fucked up for the rest of his life, and he blames me for that…as he should. But I still walked away from the love of my life to keep him alive. I let her think that I would replace her with someone else as if she meant nothing to me…just to keep him alive. Keep alive a man who despises me.”
I stared at the floor, trembling. “I…” I didn’t know what to say. Where to start. What to believe.
“He said I wasn’t good enough for you. That I’m some barbaric criminal. But I think that was all an excuse. He just wanted to use you to further his gains, and setting you up with the Skull King was the perfect union. If Theo and I weren’t close, your father would have forged an alliance with the most powerful kingpin in Italy. Just like the princesses who were married to princes of other powerful kingdoms…all to increase their territory and power. He says I’m barbaric, but he treats you like a fucking bargaining chip.”
“My father loves me?—”
“I know he does. But he uses you too.”
I stepped away, turned my back to Axel, and moved closer to the wall. There was a painting there I’d never noticed before. I stared at it without really seeing it, my hands continuing to squeeze my arms.
He gave me a couple minutes to absorb all the horror.
I continued to stare at the painting.
“Think about it,” he said quietly. “What are the odds that I would walk into the same restaurant as you with another woman?”
My breathing remained hard. My eyes turned wet.
“Quite a coincidence, if you ask me.”
I stared at the floor next.
His voice dropped. “It ruined me to do that to you.”
The memory was still horrible, seeing him pull out the chair for her and drink his wine.
“I begged him not to make me do it—fucking begged—but he didn’t give a shit. As long as he got what he wanted, he didn’t care about the consequences. He didn’t care that it broke your heart irrevocably.” He came closer to me, his voice growing louder. “Screwing over your father and demanding you to be my wife was the only way I could get you back. It’s not how I wanted to do things. It’s not how I wanted us to have our wedding. But I think we would have ended up together if your father hadn’t manipulated us both. I believe we would have ended up together.” His hands moved to my shoulders, and he gripped me, his head resting against the back of my head. “Baby?”
I stepped away, needing air to breathe, needing to escape the suffocating heat that had come out of nowhere.
He gave a sigh in disappointment.
“He—he wouldn’t do that to me.” I faced him again, tears heavy in my eyes.
“I know this is a lot?—”
“He would never…”The tears grew so heavy, they skidded down my cheeks.
“I know this is a lot,” he repeated. “But I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“And my father would never do something so heinous?—”
“It comes down to this.” He came closer to me. “One of us is lying—and it’s not me.”
“You could have made all of this up so I would forget about Cassandra.”
He gave an annoyed sigh. “Quite an elaborate lie.”
I stepped away, needing more space from him.
He winced when I moved away from him. “I’m not lying, Scarlett.”
“Then let me confront my father?—”
