“It’s too late to salvage the day.”
“I’m aware,” she snapped. “Just…give me a minute.”
She pulled her phone from her purse.
“Who are you calling?”
“My assistant. She’s in the office minding things since I’m away. Shelby?” Her tone turned authoritative.
She paused for a moment, her cheeks turning a dull pink. “I know. I can’t…I can’t go through with it. It’s complicated. And I can’t get to the hotel.” She gave him a pointed look. “Can you drive over and…and tell Zack?”
“Tell him what?” Eduardo heard her assistant’s shriek from where he was standing.
“That I’m sorry. That I wish I had been brave enough to do it differently but I can’t. I know it’s rush hour and it’s going to take forever, but please?” Hannah paused again.
“Thank you. I…I have to go.” She hit the end call button and rounded on him. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself.” He wasn’t, not then. But this wasn’t about how he felt. This was about what had to be done. This was about trying to fix Vega. Trying to fix himself.
“Not really. But I promise you in the end you will be.”
“I doubt that.”
“Once everything is resolved I will give you permission to speak of your part in the resurrection of my family’s company.”
He hadn’t intended on giving her that much. The offer shocked him. He wasn’t usually spontaneous anymore.
“Really?” she asked, her expression guarded, but the interest in her eyes too keen for her to conceal entirely.
“Really. I promise, in the end, I’ll divorce you and you can crow your achievements. What I don’t want is anyone undercutting the business while it’s vulnerable. But afterward, say whatever you like, drag me through the mud, talk about my inadequacies. It’s only pride,” he said. Pride he’d had to give up a long time ago. He clung to what he could, but it was limited.
“You’ll really divorce me this time? Forgive me for not trusting you.”
“If you don’t move around like a gypsy, then you should get papers letting you know when everything is final.” The first aborted divorce hadn’t been intentional. Another side effect of the accident that had changed everything. But, this side effect happened to be a very fortunate one indeed.
“Fine. We have a deal.” Hannah extended her slender hand and he grasped it in his. She was so petite, so fine-boned. It gave the illusion of delicacy when he knew full well she possessed none. She was steel beneath that pale skin.
A smile curved his lips, satisfaction burning in his chest. “Good girl.”
“YOU made me buy my own ticket.” Hannah stood in the doorway of Eduardo’s penthouse, exhausted and wrinkled from travel, still angry at the way everything had transpired. She’d had short notice, and limited options. She’d had to fly economy.
An infuriating smile curved Eduardo’s lips. “I did. But I knew you could afford it.”
“Doesn’t chivalry dictate you buy your blackmailed wife’s plane ticket?” Hannah dropped her suitcase next to her feet and crossed her arms. The most shocking thing about Eduardo’s appearance had been his departure, with a demand that she meet him in Barcelona in twenty-four hours. And she could get there herself.
It had been a blow to her pride, and he knew it. Because she’d been forced to get herself to Spain. She’d been the one to board the plane. If he’d tied her up and thrown her into cargo she could have pretended he’d truly forced her. That she was a slave to him, rather than to the mistakes of her past and her intense need to keep them secret.
But there was nothing more important than her image. Than the success she’d earned. Than never, ever going back to that dark place she’d come from.
Because of that, she was a slave to Eduardo, and a coward where Zack was concerned. More than a day since their almost-wedding and she hadn’t called him. Of course, he hadn’t called her, which spoke volumes about the quality and nature of their relationship.
“I checked and there was no specific entry in the handbook about the most chivalrous way to force one’s estranged bride to come and do their bidding.”
“What’s the point of even having a handbook, then?” She let out a long breath and looked pointedly at the doorway Eduardo was blocking with his broad frame. “Aren’t you going to invite me into our home?”
“Of course,” he said.
They’d shared the penthouse for six months five years ago. They’d been the most bizarre six months of her life. Sharing a home with a man who hardly acknowledged her presence, unless he needed her for a gala or to make a show of togetherness at a family dinner.
It was a six months she’d done a very good job of scrubbing from her mind. Like every other inconvenient detail in her past, it had been chucked into her mental closet, the door locked tight. It was where every juicy secret belonged. Behind closed, difficult-to-access doors.
But now it was all coming back. Her fourth year in Spain, when she’d been accepted into a coveted internship at Vega Communications. Everything had been going so well. She’d started making connections, learning how things worked at a massive corporation.
Then one day, the boss’s son had called her into his office and closed the door.
Then he’d told her he’d done a little digging and found out her real name. That she wasn’t Hannah Weston from Manhattan, but that she was Hannah Hackett from Arkansas. That she hadn’t graduated top of her class, but that she had no diploma at all.
And then, with supreme, enraging arrogance he had leaned back in his chair; hands behind his head; humor, mocking, glittering in his eyes, and he’d told her that her secret would be safe.
If she would marry him.
That sickening, surreal moment when she’d agreed, because there was nothing in the world that could compel her to lose the ground she’d gained.
Eduardo stepped aside and she breezed past him, leaving her suitcase for him to handle. Things were rearranged. His furniture new, but still black and sleek. The appliances in his kitchen were new, too, as was the dining set.
But the view was the same. Cathedral spires rising above gray brick buildings, touching the clear sky. She’d always loved the city.
She’d hated Eduardo for forcing her into marriage. Had hated herself nearly as much for being vulnerable to him, for needing to keep her secrets so badly.
And then she’d moved into his home, and she’d started to think the forced marriage wasn’t so bad after all. It was so expansive, plush, and refined. Like nothing she’d ever experienced.
Secretly, shamefully, she’d loved it. As long as she could ignore the big Spaniard that lived there, too, everything was wonderful. Comfortable.
She’d made it into school, but she was still living on a meager budget. And Eduardo had shown her luxury she’d never seen before. She’d thought she’d known. She hadn’t. Her imagination hadn’t even scratched the surface of what true wealth meant. Not until she’d met the Vega family.
It had given her something to aspire to.
“Everything looks…great.” Surreal. She’d never gone back to a place before. When she left, she left. Her childhood home, Spain, her place in New York.
“Updated a bit. But your room