Every Last Secret - A.R. Torre Page 0,89
fall back in love with her. I was the one who was supposed to win this game. Me.
Matt continued as if all were fine, as if he hadn’t just abused me. “You will not contest the divorce and will give me all the assets of our marriage, including my company.” He looked at me, making sure that I was following his ridiculous monologue.
He might be saying this now, but he couldn’t mean it. Through everything, Matt was my rock. The only one who loved me through my flaws. The only one who looked at me as if I had value. The one who had provided for me since the moment I’d lost my father. That emotional security had been the only constant in my life for the last two decades. It had been the foundation I had depended on when I had stepped out on him. His love for me . . . it wasn’t going anywhere. It couldn’t go anywhere. Him leaving me was never a piece of this plan.
“I will give you a thousand dollars a month in alimony for two years. That’s all you’ll get. Not one dollar of the bonus from Ned Plymouth. Not one dollar of our stocks or savings or the equity in this house.”
I would never agree to that. He was crazy if he thought I would.
“You’ll sign the settlement agreement and leave me alone, because if you don’t, if you ever come near me—I’ll tell them about your father. I’ll tell them the story that you detailed in your will. And they’ll believe it, especially if I have Cat beside me, sharing everything about the liqueur you gave her and the details of my fall. They’ll believe your confession, and they’ll dig up his body, and you’ll go to prison.”
I will kill Cat. I didn’t know how or when, but I’d do it. I’d cut her brakes, or push her off a mountain, or get her drunk and drown her in her giant ridiculous pool.
I risked a glance at Matt’s face and inhaled at the contempt and hatred that seeped from the look he was giving me.
Somewhere inside, there was still love. There had to be.
I pushed off the stool and bolted upstairs, needing to get away from that look before it broke me in half.
CHAPTER 49
CAT
I stood on our roof deck and gripped the thin spindles of the ladder. Built into the far end of the deck, it allowed someone to climb onto the roof, where they could walk along the pitched surfaces and see almost 360 degrees around. Around my neck the binoculars hung by a thick strap.
I made my way onto the peak and carefully walked down the opposite slope, settling in one of the elbows where the roof changed direction. Finding a comfortable position on the tile, I watched the front yard of Matt and Neena’s house.
I’d missed her entrance, the taxi coming and going while I argued with William. I asked him again why he’d done it and was given a mountain of explanations that boiled down to one thing: because he could. She’d pursued him, and he’d been too weak to resist the ego boost.
I’d expected that this confrontation would unfold in a similar fashion to what had happened with the dowdy secretary. I’d scream about Neena, and he’d scoff and ridicule. I was prepared for that, but this was an entirely different William, one who looked at me with an almost rabid devotion, which contrasted completely with the fact that he’d screwed her in our company’s boardroom.
William had apologized, over and over again, and I was already sick of hearing it. I didn’t want his apologies. I wanted him to hate her, to grow nauseated at the sound of her name, to constantly associate this affair with pain and headaches and horror. I wanted him to bind himself to us and to vow to never so much as look at another woman.
I’d dismissed his apologies and told him I needed some time for myself. After two hours at the bar with Matt, I soaked in the tub, followed by a quiet dinner in the library, and now—fresh air on the roof.
I had needed the time to think and wanted this final moment for myself.
I thought of Matt’s announcement that he would kick Neena out and wondered if he would actually stick to it. I’d had to tell him that I was leaving William, had to set that false trail to give him something to initially