“We’re expecting a baby, too. All of this has left me so overwhelmed with joy, I want to share it with all of you. Now. Some of you might know of her father’s troubles...”
A white-haired man, unable to contain himself any longer, sprang up from his table. “Howard Spencer defrauded my company of millions of dollars!” he cried, shaking his fist. “We were only repaid a fraction of what we lost!”
A low buzz of rage hummed around him.
“Letty’s father is a criminal,” Darius agreed. “He abused your trust, and I know over half of what he stole is still unaccounted for. But Letty did nothing wrong. Her only crime was loving a father who didn’t deserve it. That’s why I’ve decided, in my future bride’s honor, to make amends.”
Suddenly, it was dead quiet across the tables.
Darius held his champagne glass high. “I will personally pay back every penny her father stole.”
A collective gasp ripped through the ballroom.
The white-haired man staggered back. “But that’s...five billion dollars!”
“So it is,” Darius said mildly. He looked over the crowd. “So if your family is still owed money by Howard Spencer, I personally guarantee repayment. All in honor of my beautiful...innocent...unfairly hounded...bride.” Turning back toward Letty on stage, he held up his champagne glass and said into the microphone, “To Letitia Spencer!”
As photographers rushed forward, Letty felt faint. Camera flashes lit up everywhere. There was a rumble of noise, of shouts and gasps and chairs hastily pushed aside as a thousand people scrambled to their feet and lifted their champagne glasses into the air.
“Letitia Spencer!” they cried joyfully.
IT WASN’T EVERY day a man spent five billion dollars on a whim.
Darius hadn’t intended to do it. He’d had a different surprise in mind for Letty tonight: a black velvet box hidden in the pocket of his tuxedo jacket, which he’d planned to spring on her as soon as the evening was over and all her overblown fears had proved unfounded.
Instead, he’d realized how much she’d endured over the last ten years. Alone. While he’d been happily free to live an anonymous life and make his fortune.
Standing in the hallway, when he’d seen her come out of the bathroom looking shattered and as pale as a ghost, he’d finally realized the toll it had taken on her. And if this was how people treated Letty now, how much worse had it been ten years ago, when their rage had been white-hot?
He’d been forced to ask himself: If Letty had actually shown up the night they were going to run away together and told him about her father’s confession, what would have happened?
Darius would have of course insisted she marry him anyway. After all, what did her father’s stupid investment fund have to do with their love?
But as her husband, he would have been at her side throughout the scandal and media circus of a trial. He might not have received the critical early loan that enabled him to build his software, to hire employees, to lease his first office space. He would have been too tainted by association as Howard Spencer’s son-in-law.
If Letty hadn’t set him free, he might have been unemployable, unable to easily provide for his wife or children. He might be living in that tiny Brooklyn apartment, too, struggling with the loss of his dreams. Struggling to provide for his family. Struggling not to feel like a failure as a man.
It was Letty’s sacrifice ten years ago that had made his current success possible.
While he’d been triumphantly building his billion-dollar company, she’d lived in poverty, suffering endless humiliations for a crime that wasn’t even hers. And she’d kept her sacrifice a secret, so he’d never once had to feel guilty about deserting her.
Even now, she continued to protect him. She’d warned him what would happen if he brought her as his date. And now he’d finally seen how the members of the so-called upper class had treated her all this time. He’d watched Letty bear their insults without complaint. And he’d realized her stigma was so bad that, in spite of his arrogant earlier assumption, his presence alone wasn’t enough to shelter her.
He knew how it felt to be treated badly.
He’d once been the poorest child in his village, mocked as an unloved bastard. He was now the most beloved, feared man of Heraklios. He did pretty well in Manhattan, too. And London. And Paris and Rome, Sydney and Tokyo.
Money could buy everything from houses to souls.
Money made the man.
It astonished him that not everyone realized this. Some people seemed to think love was the most important thing. They were either fools, Darius thought grimly, or gluttons for punishment. He’d learned his own lesson well. The sick truth was that love only led to pain.
Love was a pale facsimile of money. Love begged.
Money demanded.
So when Darius had seen how badly New York society had treated Letty for all these years—these people who didn’t have a fraction of her kindness or her loyalty or her heart—ice had seized his soul.
Especially when he’d realized that he’d treated her even worse. After a decade of ignoring her, he’d taken revenge for her so-called sins through cold seduction, insults and threats.
His jaw tightened. He would pay that debt.
Darius didn’t love her. The part of his heart that had once craved love had been burned away. Love wasn’t something he ever wanted to feel for anyone.
But there were other qualities Darius did believe in.
Honor.
Loyalty.
Protecting his woman.
So he’d settled the matter, once and for all.
Now Letty would be the most popular girl in the city. Every person who’d once treated her shabbily would be begging for an invitation to their wedding. Begging to be her friend.
At the moment of Darius’s triumph, as he toasted her on stage, he turned to face Letty at the podium. Rough, raw desire surged through his body as he looked at her—his woman now, his—lush and pregnant and obscenely beautiful in that pink gown, which slid over her breasts and belly like a caress.
She stood unsteadily in those ridiculous stiletto heels, beneath the blinding spotlight, as a thousand people applauded from the darkness. People who had treated her like garbage just minutes before started chanting her name. Camera flashes lit up the darkness as reporters shouted questions.
“Miss Spencer, what’s it like to be loved to the tune of five billion dollars?”
“When’s the wedding?”
“When’s your baby due?”
“How does it feel to suddenly be the most popular girl in New York?”
Letty looked at Darius with the expression of a terrified deer, and he realized she wasn’t enjoying this as much as he was.
Turning back to the microphone with a smile, Darius answered for her. “The wedding will be soon. No plans yet. Our baby will be born soon, too.” He looked past the reporters to the well-heeled crowd. “That’s all. Thank you for your support! Enjoy your night. And since you’re now all so much richer, don’t forget to be generous to the scholarship fund—it’s for the kids.” Setting his empty champagne glass on the podium, he glanced at the full orchestra. “Let’s start the music!”
“Kick off the dancing, Darius!” someone shouted from