Page 64 of Shattered Crown
"Apology accepted," I said. The words scraped against my throat.
He nodded. Looked down at his hands. Quiet settled again.
"Why do you hate me?"
The question caught me off guard. I looked up to find him watching me, his expression open in a way I'd never seen before.
"I'm serious," he said. "We've known each other for years. And you've always looked at me like I was something you scraped off your shoe. What did I ever do to you?"
I laughed. It came out bitter. "As if you don't know."
"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."
I studied his face, looking for the lie. The manipulation. The angle he was working at.
I found nothing but confusion.
"Ethan Sullivan," I said.
His brow furrowed. "What about him?"
"What do you mean ‘what about him?’ Have you forgotten what you did?" He just stared at me blankly. “I heard you practically encourage him to break up with me.”
“I didn’t…”
I raised my hand. “You did. I heard you.”
He scoffed. “Even if I did, which I definitely didn’t, it was for a good cause. You didn’t care about him.”
“Excuse me?”
He nodded. “You heard me. You were fine letting him go bankrupt as long as all that money was going into the foundation.”
“Wait… what?” My mouth fell open. That made no sense. Ethan hadn’t donated a single penny to the foundation. He’d escorted me to events, sure. But he’d only tried to convince other donors to invest in one pyramid scheme or the other. “That wasn’t what happened.”
“Then why don’t you tell me whatdidhappen.”
“Ugh… fine. Ethan had gotten himself into some very questionable businesses, made some really bad financialdecisions. Decisions so bad that he was broke. I had to loan him some money to keep him afloat. And before he dumped me, he'd asked me to invest in another one of his schemes.”
“And did you?”
“God, no. Fortunately, the relationship ended before we got to that stage.”
Sebastian grinned. “Then I guess you should be thanking me. Seems I did you a monumental favor. You’re welcome. And by the way, he approached me, too. Tried to get me to fund something or other. I turned him down and have avoided him since.”
I glared at him, and yet, I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. All those years. All that anger. And it was built on a lie told by a man who'd been trying to con both of us.
"I thought…" I pressed my hand to my forehead. "I thought you were a terrible person. Which you are, but I thought you were a lot worse."
“Wow… thanks for the confidence.”
And then, impossibly, a laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest. Sebastian's lips twitched. Then he was laughing too, a rusty sound, surprised out of him.
"All this time," I managed between giggles. "I thought you ruined my relationship. And it was just Ethan being a con artist."
"To be fair, I did think you were intense."
"Iamintense."
