But Atlas would be damned if he felt any sympathy for her. Lexi was the one who had sat up in that witness box and ruined him. One halting, obviously terrified word after the next.
He remembered her testimony too well. That and the way she’d looked at him, her wide brown eyes slicked with tears, as if it hurt her to accuse him of such things. And worse than that. With fear.
Of him.
The worst wasn’t what she’d done to him. It was that unlike her bastard of an uncle, she’d believed that he’d done what he was accused of doing. She’d believed with all her heart and soul that he was a vicious killer. That he’d had an argument with impetuous, grandiose Philippa who had made no secret of the fact she’d have liked to get naked with him, had choked her because—the prosecution had thundered—he was a man with no impulse control and had feared that a relationship with the Worth heiress would get him fired, and had then thrown her into the pool on that cool summer night in the Oyster House compound.
Leaving her there to be found by Lexi when she’d gone looking for Philippa early the next morning.
“If Mr. Chariton feared that he would lose his position at the company because of Miss Worth, why would he leave her in the pool to be found the moment someone woke up?” his lawyer had asked Lexi.
Atlas could still remember the way her eyes had filled with tears. The way her lips had trembled. The way she’d looked at him, there at the defense table, as if he stormed through her nightmares nightly. As if he hadn’t just killed Philippa, to her mind, but had broken her own heart, too.
“I don’t know,” she’d whispered. “I just don’t know.”
And in so doing, had made him the monster the jury had convicted after a mere two-hour deliberation.
It was Lexi’s belief in the fact he must have done such a terrible thing—and how upset she’d been at the prospect—that had locked him away for a decade.
She might as well have turned the key in the lock herself.
“You’ve grown up,” he said when it didn’t look as if she planned to speak. Possibly ever again.
“I was eighteen when you left,” she replied after a moment, her cheeks a crisp, hot red. “Of course I’ve grown up since then.”
“When I left,” he echoed her, his own words tinged with malice. “Is that what you call it? How delightfully euphemistic.”
“I don’t know what to call it, Atlas. If I could take back—”
“But you can’t.”
That sat there then, taking up all the space in the close little room, as claustrophobic and faintly shabby as it was possible to get on this vast, luxurious estate. And he understood exactly why her devious, manipulative uncle had stashed her away here. Heaven forfend she spend even one moment imagining herself on the same level as his feckless, irresponsible sons.
Atlas roamed farther inside the small office, cluttered with overstuffed bookshelves and unframed prints when there were old masters piled high and unused in the attics of the great house. He was aware that it would take no more than an extra step to put himself right there on the opposite side of her flimsy little desk, within arm’s reach. What bothered him was how very much he wanted to get close to her. Not just to make her uncomfortable, though he wanted that. Badly.
But he also wanted his hands on her. All over her, and not only because the past ten years had been so particularly kind to her—so kind, in fact, that he’d had to take a moment in the doorway to handle his reaction. And to remind himself that while he’d expected a drab little girl and had been wholly committed to doing what needed to be done with her, the fact she’d grown into something rather far removed from drab could only be to his benefit.
Because he had a very specific plan, she was integral to it, and it would involve more than just his hands. It would involve his entire body, and hers, and better still—her complete and total surrender to his will in all things.
He thought that might—just might—take the edge off.
Or anyway, it would be a good start.
And the fact she’d grown up curvy and mouthwatering just made it that much better.
“I don’t know what to say.” Lexi’s voice was quieter then, and he watched, fascinated, as she laced her fingers together and held them in front of her as if they provided her with some kind of armor.
“Is this what wringing your hands actually looks like? I’ve never seen it in person before.” He tilted his head slightly to one side as he let his gaze move over her bookshelves. All dull books about the damned house and the Worth family, stretching back centuries. It wasn’t until he looked at her again that he saw the brighter and more cracked spines of the books behind her desk—within her reach—that suggested she allowed herself a little more fun than she perhaps wished to advertise. That boded well. “Is that meant to render me sympathetic?”
“Of course not. I only—”
“Here’s the thing, Lexi.” He stopped near the window and noted that the rain had begun again, because of course it had. This was England. He picked up one of the small, polished stones that lay on the sill, tested the weight of it in his hand, then set it down again. “You did not simply betray me, though let us be clear. You did. You also betrayed yourself. And worst of all, I think, Philippa.”
She jerked at that, as if he’d hauled off and hit her. He wasn’t that far gone. Not yet. He’d stopped imagining surrendering to the clawing need for brutality inside him some years into his prison term. Or he’d stopped imagining it quite so vividly as he had at first, anyway.
“Don’t you think I know that?” she demanded, though it came out more like a whisper, choked and fierce at once. “I’ve done nothing since your release but go over it all in my head again and again, trying to understand how I could possibly have got it all so wrong, but—”
“Lucky for you, Philippa is just as dead now as she was eleven years ago,” Atlas told her without the faintest shred of pity for her when she blanched at that. “She is the only one among us who does not have to bear witness to any of this. The miscarriage of justice. The incarceration of an innocent man. All the many ways this family sold itself out, betraying itself and me in the process. And in so doing, left Philippa’s murder unsolved for a decade. Though there is one question I’ve been meaning to ask you for years now.” He waited until she looked at him, her brown gaze flooded bright with emotion. Good, he thought. He hoped it hurt. He waited another beat, purely for the theater of it. “Are you proud of yourself?”
Her throat worked for a moment, and he thought she might give in and let the tears he could see in her eyes fall—but she didn’t. And he couldn’t have said why he felt something like pride in that. As if it should matter to him that she had more control of herself these days than she had ten years back.
“I don’t think anyone is proud of anything,” she said, her voice husky with all those things he could see on her face.
“We are not speaking of anyone,” Atlas said sternly. “Your uncle and your cousins will face a different reckoning, I assure you, and none of them deserve you rushing to defend them. I’m talking about you, Lexi. I’m talking about what you did.”
He expected her to crumple, because the old version of Lexi had always seemed so insubstantial to him. In his memory she had been a shadow dancing on the edge of things. Always in the background. Always somewhere behind Philippa. She’d been eighteen and on the cusp of the beauty she hadn’t grown into yet.
Though there had been no doubt she would. He’d known that even then, when he had made certain not to pay too close attention to the two silly girls who ran around the Worth properties together, always giggling and staring and making nuisances of themselves.
Her mouth had never seemed to fit her face, back then. Too lush,