“
You can’t mean to marry her!” Roslyn’s shrill voice rose. “Do you forget how she stole from you? That she tried to ruin your company? If you need any reminders, just look at the new hotels going up in Paris and Rome. Your hotels, Chrysander. Only they’re going up under your competitor’s name.”
A haze blew through Marley’s mind. Red hot. Like a swarm of angry bees, tidbits of information began buzzing in her head. And suddenly it was as if a dam broke. The locked door in her mind that she’d tried so hard to budge simply opened, and the past came roaring through with vicious velocity.
She swayed and gripped the door frame tighter. Nausea boiled in her stomach as each and every moment flashed like a movie in fast-forward.
Chrysander’s angry accusation of thievery. His ordering her from their apartment, his life. Her abduction and the months she’d spent in hopeless fear, waiting for Chrysander to answer the ransom demands. Demands he’d ignored.
Oh God, she was going to be sick.
He’d left her. Discarded her like a piece of rubbish. The half million dollars, a paltry sum to a man of Chrysander’s means, was an amount he’d been unwilling to part with to ensure her return.
Everything had been a lie. He’d lied to her nonstop since she’d awoken in the hospital. He didn’t love her or want her. He despised her.
She hadn’t been worth half a million dollars to him.
Pain splintered through her chest as she shattered. As everything she’d known as true suddenly turned black. Her heart withered and cracked, falling in pieces around her.
He hadn’t tried to save her.
The tortured cry that ripped from her mouth echoed through the room. She clamped a hand over her lips, but it was too late. Everyone looked her way. Theron flinched, and an odd discomfort settled over Piers’s face. She met Chrysander’s gaze, and she could see the truth in his eyes as he realized that she remembered.
”
”