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 the back.
“Yes, the first dance to you and Letty!” someone else cried.
Darius led her down the steps from the stage, and as they reached the dance floor, the music started, a slow, romantic song he’d purposefully requested from the orchestra earlier because he knew Letty would remember it from that long-ago summer.
He was right. She stopped when she heard it, eyes wide.
Darius looked down at her with a crooked half smile. “What do you say? Will you dance with me, Letty?”
She looked around at all the people who had treated her with such contempt for the last ten years, now beaming at her as if they were best friends.
“Why are they acting as if they like me?” she said softly, for his ears alone.
“People love to talk about character and loyalty and love. They mean money.” He allowed himself a grim smile. “Now the money’s been paid, so they can love you again.”
Letty’s head snapped back to look at him. Her big hazel eyes, fringed with dark lashes, were wide, as if he were a superhero who’d flown down from the sky. “Why did you do it, Darius? Why pay five billion dollars for a debt that isn’t yours?”
The music swirled around them like a whirlwind. “Do you remember our old waltz?”
Her forehead creased. “Of course…” She looked back at the people yelling encouragement for them to dance. She bit her lip. “But not in front of everyone…”
“Now.” Darius pulled her against his tuxedo-clad body. “Dance with me.”
Letty’s long dark hair was falling softly around her beautiful face to her shoulders, nestling against the diamonds sparkling around her neck. He’d already wanted her, but as he felt her body in his arms, and the crush of her belly and swollen breasts against his chest, he wanted her even more.
Just like that long-ago summer…
“Come on, Letty,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s show them all we don’t give a damn.”
He moved commandingly onto the dance floor, leading her in the first steps of the waltz he’d helped her practice for her debutante ball long ago, the spring of her senior year. They’d practiced the waltz over and over in the sunlit spring flower meadow on the Fairholme estate, overlooking the sparkling bay, as music sang from her phone.
They’d started out as friends and ended as something else entirely.
When she’d left for her debutante ball in Manhattan that May, looking beautiful beyond belief in her white dress, Darius spent the whole evening prowling the meadow in a rage, hating the Harvard boy who was her date.
He’d