stature. Fool me, huh, Clio?”
Nastiness dripped from every word Jackson uttered. But Clio held off the impulse to instantly scan the crowd for Stefan.
This had begun with Stefan at her side, true, but it was high time she looked after herself. Squaring her shoulders, she turned around.
His mouth curling, Jackson swept his blue gaze over her with such disdain that sweat pooled over her skin.
“Don’t make a scene, Jackson.”
“Oh, come on, Clio. After that entrance, after that clip of you crawling all over him out there for the world to see...after you jumped into his bed without even telling me we’re through, you disgust me.”
That he could think all that of her, that he could say it to her face stunned Clio.
“You’re the one who’s been fooling me for months,” she said, unable to curb the words from falling out of her mouth. All the warnings she had given herself about not betraying what she had seen flew out. Her throat felt like there was glass stuck in it and she had to remind herself that it was not her shame.
“God, you had sex with Ashley and you laughed at me with her.”
Something like shame filled his gaze, and was gone in a nanosecond, a calculating look emerging in his features. “So that’s what this is about? Payback? You think you’ll dangle yourself on his arm and make me sorry for what I did? You think I’ll come running back to you and beg for forgiveness?”
His gaze took in her designer dress, her upswept hair, the diamond on her finger as if he was cataloging everything about her.
Venomous satisfaction filled his gaze. “Of course it is. Why else would a red-blooded Sicilian like Bianco, who’s known to never date a woman for more than a week, want to marry you of all the women on the planet?”
For the first time since she had heard the sound of him shamelessly shagging his assistant, Clio was filled with molten fury unlike she had ever known.
It was cleansing, it was invigorating and it burned any remaining doubt that somehow, it had been her fault.
She had done nothing wrong except for trusting a deceptive man with not an ounce of honor.
“You have pushed me beyond my limits already but be careful what you say about him. Stefan already doesn’t have much of an opinion about you.”
“You stupid whore,” he spat out, fear and something else shaking his well-muscled frame. “Can’t you see he’s just using you to get to me?”
They were drawing looks, she was aware of it as if there was another version of her scanning the room. Years of breeding and her own nature cringed at being amidst a spectacle, recoiled at being the center of attention. But she was damned if she let Jackson intimidate her, too, on top of everything else he had done.
“Don’t you dare take another step forward, Jackson.”
Something in her tone must have registered because he stopped, his mouth still wearing that nasty curl. “The minute he realizes you’re of no use to him, just as you weren’t to me, he’s going to dump your ass.
“He’s no more going to marry you than I did in three years. And when he does dump you, when he moves on to brighter and better pastures, I’ll still be here to laugh at you, Clio.
“You’re nothing but a crutch to be used.”
The knowing smile on his lips, the sneering tone of his words, the decided gleam in his eyes that there was nothing valuable about her to any man, the echo of her darkest fear that no man would ever love her for herself and not her name—it unleashed a firestorm in Clio.
She wanted to roar at Jackson, she wanted to raise her hand and slap the sneer off his mouth.
But he didn’t even deserve her anger.
Lifting her head high, she gave him an imperious look that cut him to size. “Be prepared to lose, Jackson. Everything,” she said loudly, glad that she sounded steady, confident.
She could not let him ruin what was left of her life in the city that she loved so much. She would not let him run her out of New York on a wave of scandal and shame. She could not let him still have so much power over her life, her happiness.
Even if it meant taking the biggest gamble she had ever risked in her life, even if it meant tying her fate to the one man who could help her become whole again, even if he did it by shredding her to pieces.
“You’ll be glad that you’re the first one to hear this. Stefan and I are going to be married in a week. Here in New York, at the Chatsfield. And you know what, Jackson? You’re invited.”
* * *
Dio, no!
Clio hadn’t just said that.
Standing at the back of the crowd that was hungrily lapping up the exchange between Clio and that scum, Jackson, Stefan stood rooted to the spot, a hundred different emotions crashing and derailing him from inside.
It felt eerily like that moment when Serena had callously and without even an ounce of emotion told him that she was done with him, that she had no use for him without his parents’ fortune.
In just a minute, he had lost everything—his parents’ respect and trust and love, the woman he had given up everything for, and the worst, his belief in his judgment, his emotions, in his self-worth.
His entire world had collapsed.
Her shoulders ramrod straight, her eyes breathing green fire, her small breasts falling and rising, her skin glowing with anger—it was the Clio he had admired and lusted after a decade ago.
She was spectacular to behold, truly an equal to goddess Athena at that moment as she battled the obvious fear that shadowed her gaze.
But even above the fierce pride and admiration he felt on her behalf for finally putting Jackson in his place was the most insidiously ugly and eviscerating thought he had ever faced.
Her boldness in so publicly and irrevocably announcing their wedding in a week...
Had this been her plan all along? Had the distrust and fragility in her eyes, the way she had trembled under his lips, the shadow of the woman that made him want to protect her from everything, had it all been an act?
The minute the thought erupted, Stefan felt acidic distaste flood his mouth. Cursing, he drove his fist into the pillar next to him, attempting to ground himself, struggling to contain his volatile emotions and his mind’s poisonous thoughts.
Dio, he didn’t want to think along either lines about Clio. And yet the distrust in him was bone deep.
Even as he hated that she was changing his life, even as he couldn’t get a handle on his suspicions, he knew how much making a life here meant to her, knew how much she loved this city.
Reminded himself of the desperate courage that had shone in her eyes when she had shown up at his suite.
Running a hand
