Catherine's jaw ached, and tears sprang into her eyes. She didn't know what to do. When she woke in his mansion, she had hoped she'd be able to find a way to make things work with him, but now she wasn't so sure.

The truth was she had loved Marco once. She thought he was funny and clever and charming. Though he didn't have family wealth or connections, he promised her he was going to do great things in life. He'd always told her he was going to be a self-made man, and she believed him. Together they'd laughed at men like Sean who had been born into wealth and success.

​​

When her uncle told her she was going to marry Sean, she'd thrown a fit. She told him she despised men like Sean who walked around like they owned the world but had never worked for anything they had. She'd called him cold and passionless and insisted she wouldn't do it. Her uncle had insisted, and she'd told him he'd regret his mistake. After all, it was the 21st century, young women weren't married off in business deals anymore.

Her uncle had locked her up in the house, afraid that she'd escape before the wedding. He'd cut her funds and taken away her phone. Madison had become her only hope, and together they'd planned her elopement with Marco.

When the fateful day came, she'd been excited and nervous. She couldn't believe she'd managed to escape. When she failed to appear at the wedding, her uncle had left her a furious voicemail warning her that she was no longer his family. She ignored it and laughed it off, but when she checked her bank account, she found it empty. She ran each of her cards and found they were all rejected.

Marco had been furious. Though he had often talked about becoming a self-made man, he had never explained how he meant to do it. She quickly realized that he had been counting on her family money to make himself. As soon as it was gone, he turned from the funny, caring, sweet man she knew into a cruel and abusive monster.

"Answer me," Sean whispered.

"No," she said. "You shouldn't let us be together. I despise him and want nothing to do with him."

"Oh, Cathy," Madison murmured. "Why are you doing this to yourself? Sean is a kind man, just tell him the truth and ask for his forgiveness."

"No," Catherine said, looking deep into Sean's cold eyes. "Marco and I are not meant to be together, and I don't have any feelings for him at all. In fact, I've already ended things with him."

She studied Sean's face, hoping to see some change there, but it was frozen in an expressionless mask.

"You broke up?" Madison said. "What? When? That doesn't make sense. You just tried to elope with him on your wedding day!"

She took a deep breath and said, "Marco wasn't the man I thought he was. He lied to me, and so did you, Madison. When I talked to him, he told me all these great things, but when I saw him yesterday, it was clear that he was just using me for my family name and money. Honestly, I never would have chosen to run away with him on my own, but together you two pushed me into it. I felt like I didn't have a choice."

"Do you even hear yourself?" Madison asked. "You sound crazy."

"Not crazy," Catherine said with a sigh. "But I was foolish and stupid, and I didn't realize until it was too late."

"But—" Madison began.

"Please, Madison, just let it go," she said. "Go home and worry about your own life. I don't want anything to do with you and Marco."

"You really have lost it," Madison said. "I'm really worried."

"What's there to be worried about?" Catherine said, still staring at Sean. "As you pointed out, my husband is a good man. I'm safe here with him."

Something flickered in Sean's eyes as she said the words "my husband," but she couldn't tell what emotion it was. Who did he believe? His face was still unreadable.

"Sean, please let her go home," Catherine said. "My uncle will be worried about her, and I need some time away from her to think. A lot has happened, and I still need time to figure it out."

"Cathy, no," Madison said. "I'm helping you."

"You're not," she said. "Please, just go."

Sean called for security, and the two identical guards returned and dragged Madison from the room. As they pulled her through the door, she looked over her shoulder and glared at Catherine. Catherine breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the doors shut. Before she could say anything to Sean, a short, urgent knock sounded.

"What is it?" Sean snapped.

Levi stepped into the room, looking uncomfortable, "Sir, Marco Jacobs has asked to see you and Mrs. Blair."

Catherine's stomach sank. How shameless could Marco be? Couldn't he just leave her in peace and forget about her?

"The men went too easy on him," Sean said. "If they'd followed my orders, he wouldn't have the strength to talk."

Levi rocked backward on his feet, glancing nervously at Catherine, "Actually, they beat him pretty severely. By the third blow, he was promising he'd never see Catherine again. He's ready to apologize to you now."

"Oh, is that so?" Sean asked.

"Yes, sir," Levi said.

"Fine," Sean said, a smile playing around his lips. "We'll see him."

"No," Catherine said. "I don't want to see him."

She didn't know how she'd react if she was in the same room with him again. She was scared she'd fly into a rage and attack him, but she was even more afraid she'd turn back into her old self: limp and weak and cowering. Her chest contracted in pain, and her breathing started to come in short ragged bursts.

"Please," she panted. "I don't want to see him."

He stared at her with a sharp look, as if trying to see into the very depths of her soul. She looked back, but her head was spinning, and it seemed impossible to get enough air. She dug her fingernails into her palms and tried to slow her breathing.

"Please, I don't want to see him," she said again.

His eyes narrowed, and he whispered, "I think you gave up your right to say that when you tried to elope with him."

She shivered, wishing the room would stop spinning. What if it was a test? What if he wanted to see how she looked at Marco? She took a deep, shuddering breath. Maybe it would be a good thing. Maybe when Sean saw the hatred in her eyes, he'd believe that she didn't love or want Marco.

"Okay," she said. "I'll go."

"Good," he said, taking her hand.

He led her through the house to the front door, where she numbly changed out of her slippers and into a pair of leather sneakers. He tugged her down the paved walkway to the gravel driveway and into the backseat of a black town car.

At first, she wasn't sure where he was taking her. The car passed under the arching old oak trees toward the gates to the property, but instead of turning out into the main road, it followed a narrow paved path around the perimeter of the property. When the old servant's quarters appeared, she understood.

At the back of the estate, there were several brick row houses. The houses had been built hundreds of years ago to accommodate the help, and the garden workers and Sean's family still rented the rooms to security guards and the occasional cook, cleaner, or gardener.

The bright green grass made her head hurt. The last time she'd seen the servant's quarters and the estates, she'd been trying to escape from Sean. She'd been his prisoner for ten days. Though he let her have free range of the property, she was frantic to get away, terrified of what Marco would do to her when she went back to him.

She'd been running across the lawn, stumbling with weakness when Sean himself caught her. He'd carried her back to the mansion and laid her down in the bed, and something inside her had snapped. She'd pulled him to her and kissed him as deeply as she could. He'd spent the night making love to her.

She shivered with the memory. It had gotten very passionate—she hadn't been able to walk the next day. In the morning, she'd looked at the bruises and love marks and felt filled with shame. She couldn't believe she'd betrayed Marco like that. She had tried to kill herself.