Page 32 of A Diamond Deal
‘I don’t recogniseyou,’ she corrected.
‘I have not changed,’ he growled. ‘I’m the man you—’
‘You’re cold, Konstantinos.Selfish. You don’t care how hard it will be for me to go out there—’ she waved towards the lift at the end of the corridor ‘—in front of them.’
‘You did not consider me,agape,’ he said darkly, ‘when you left me to answer questions I did not know the answer to.’
‘You lied tome.’ She placed her palm to the centre of her chest. As if he’d hurt her there.
Something inside him shifted.Dropped.
‘I did not lie,’ he said.Roughly.
‘You didn’t tell me about your dad.’ She closed her eyes. Her chest rose sharply. Up and down. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She sighed. Opened her eyes. ‘We’re not the people we thought we were any more. And what you did to Léon tonight…’ Her shoulders rose.Squared.‘Thatis proof you’re not the man I married. You’re taking over Léon’s company with no consideration of whatthatwill do to him. You would have considered it…before.But now…you care for nothing but yourself.’
He closed his eyes—let the pump of his heart drown out everything.
He hadn’t changed. He’d been everything he’d promised he would be. He’d protected her.Shehad changed. Every day with the swell of her stomach. She’d pushed him away.
Rage…it heated his skin.
Never did he lose his temper.
Never did he lose control.
It was a point of pride. To be in control of his emotions. His actions. His parents had been so reckless with theirs. His mother’s despair. His father’s relentless search for the ultimate power. It had corrupted them both. These…emotions.They had overwhelmed every aspect of their lives until they couldn’t see anything else.
They couldn’t see you.
Yes. It had been a hard truth in his childhood. It had been a hard truth when he had tried frantically to stay above the water with his mother’s weight in his arms as the sea took him under. Again. And again.
He had felt itthatday. Emotion. So thick. So overwhelming.
Emotion had caused his mother to drown.
He’d let her drown because he’d panicked.
He’d lost control.
He’d sworn never again to panic. Never again would he not see what was right in front of him. Never again would he be too late to protect those he loved because emotion had frozen him to the spot.
And so he’d chosen never to feel.
Never to love.
But it had seeped from his pores the moment he’d come home to find Poppy gone. He’d searched the world to find her, to put everything back where it was. Restore the life he’d built. And now she was here, and still he did not have it.
Control.
Blood roared in his ears.
He would have it.
He would take back his control.
But she was right.
He wasn’t the man she’d married.
