Giving in again wasn’t an option. He’d already done it once, and it landed him here—a fish caught on a never-ending hook. But, dammit. How could he get out of this? What was his next move?
His mind raced with a possible solution. Anything that would free him from this man and his deceitful daughter. One thing he treasured above all was loyalty. And feeling safe with a person. She’d betrayed both. Maybe he didn’t have a way of escape now, but by God, he would find one.
“So what’s your decision, Cain?” Gregory pressed. The smug smile on his face telegraphed his confidence that he’d won Cain’s cooperation.
Well, he could go screw himself.
“The answer is not a chance in hell,” he ground out, glaring at Gregory. Anger, pain and disillusionment poisoned his blood. “It isn’t enough to force your daughter on me. Now you want to force your way into my family business as well.”
“I certainly have no intention of being forced on anyone.”
Pain blazed a white-hot path through her, and for a moment, she could barely breathe past it. But she forced her feet forward, entering Cain’s study and approaching her father and the man she’d just admitted to loving the night before.
The man who had just made it infinitely clear that he wanted nothing to do with her.
Oh God, that hurt.
Forcing a calm to her expression that was a complete lie, she stopped in front of Cain’s desk and dropped the thick manila folder in her hand on top.
“Devon,” her father snapped. “What are you doing here?”
“Setting everything right,” she replied. “I hate to break it to you, Dad, but the engagement—if you could ever really call it that—is done. I’m calling it off.”
“What?” he demanded, stalking to her side. “What are you talking about, girl?”
She didn’t reply to her father, nor did she remove her gaze from Cain’s. His eyes simmered with anger, and her heart constricted, pain flaring in her chest. She’d overheard his conversation with her father. Knew what he thought. Even after last night. He still believed her capable of betraying him. She would never be trustworthy in his eyes. Would always be the burden he’d just called her.
Well, she was no one’s burden, no one’s liability.
Not anymore.
“Take it,” she whispered, nudging it closer with a fingertip. “You’re free. And so am I.”
“Devon.” Her father gripped her arm and turned her to face him. Crimson slashed across his cheekbones, fury and worry warring for dominance in his eyes. “What did you do?”
“What I should’ve done when you first started all of this, Dad. After you left for work this morning, I opened your safe,” she murmured, regret a heavy weight on her shoulders. “It didn’t take me long to figure out the combination.” She huffed out a humorless laugh. “Mom’s birthday. Seems almost sacrilegious to use anything about her in relation to what you’ve done. But I found everything you had on Cain’s mother. It’s in that file.” She waved a hand toward Cain’s desk. “I have to be honest. I didn’t expect either of you to be here. I intended to just leave this here for you, Cain, and talk to you later, Dad. But since you both are, we can get this over with now. Two birds with one stone, and all that. It’s done. This is all finished.”
“How could you?” Gregory yelled, dropping his hand and stepping away from her as if she disgusted him. “I’m your father, and you betray me like this? For a man who doesn’t even want anything to do with you?”
She took that truthful jab, absorbed it and pushed on. “You betrayed me first,” she shot back, straightening her shoulders and hiking her chin. “I’ve been nothing but a puppet to you. A pawn to move around on your chessboard. I’m through, Dad. I’m your daughter. And it’s all I’ve wanted to be for a very, very long time. But if you can’t be my father—the father who loved and accepted me, who thought I was perfect even when I clearly wasn’t, who thought the sun rose and fell on me simply because he loved me—then we can’t have a relationship anymore. I’ll love you from a distance rather than be involved in a toxicity that drains me of my self-worth and confidence.”
“You’re no daughter of mine,” her father stated, the ice in his voice piercing her clean through, and then he pivoted on his heel and stormed out.
She absorbed that verbal blow, too.
“Devon,” Cain said, and she returned her attention to him, holding up a hand, palm out.
“No. Both you and my father have said more than enough,” she said, referring to the conversation she overheard. “For too long, I’ve passively allowed myself to go along with the men in my life. To be toyed with and maneuvered like a plaything. I’m done. There was a time I loved a man who didn’t love me in return, who used me. You might not want an ‘in’ like Donald did, but I won’t be your surrogate for venting your anger. I’ve never betrayed you. Never hurt you. I’ve only...”
Loved you.
But she held back those words. No, he couldn’t have that from her. Her heart might be shattering because of how much he filled it to breaking, but when she walked out of here, it would be with her pride. He couldn’t have that either.
“I’m through paying for someone else’s sins. I’ve been paying the price with my father for my mother dying and leaving him. I’ve paid the price for being too blind to see when a man wanted my father’s favor more than he wanted me. And with you, I’m paying for being his daughter. You’ve never seen me as more than that, Cain. And initially, I couldn’t blame you. But after getting to know me... After spending time with me... After being in me...” Her voice cracked on the reminder of how tender and loving he’d been with her, and how it’d all been a lie. “You once asked me who I really was. I hoped you would come to see that, know me for myself. But you never will. I will always be a reminder of the man who blackmailed you and threatened your mother. I’m so much more than that. And I’m tired of trying to prove it to you.”
“Devon,” Cain murmured, and for the first time his gaze softened, losing the edge that had been there since she’d intruded into the study. “I know who you are.”
“Too late,” she whispered, loving him and resenting him for saying that to her now. “I don’t believe you. I saw your face, your eyes when I walked in here. You thought I had sided with my father. The truth is he did ask me to approach you about that deal. He even instructed me to steal the info on it. But I couldn’t do that to you. And had I known he would attempt to blackmail you again, I would’ve told you about his desire to be in on the project. That’s my mistake—a mistake. The truth is, Cain, you can never trust me.”
