Marlena’s eyes widened.
“Hell, John,” Gerard muttered, looking around in embarrassment. “Business arrangements don’t include jealousy.”
“Business arrangements?” Fury was beginning to envelop him.
“Well, surely you didn’t think it was a love match,” Marlena drawled. “Your money, my family. That does not a passionate affair make.”
Her family? Her father didn’t have shit compared to his in financial success. Did she honestly believe the Genoa name held an advantage to him?
“John.” And there was Sierra, sliding in close, her tiny hand settling on his arm. “This is the wrong place to fight. You don’t want witnesses when you kill them, right?”
He almost laughed. Hell, he was almost amused as he stared down at her somber little face. “I have a good lawyer,” he promised her in a loud whisper. “And diminished capacity goes a long way.”
Lifting his gaze, he watched as Marlena and Gerard both stepped back. “What’s wrong, Gerry, buddy? You don’t have as much money as I do?”
Gerard winced; they both knew he didn’t.
“Fuck both of you,” he growled. “You can mail the ring back, keep it, or flush it, who the f**k cares. Now I know why I hesitated to give you the heirloom Mother has. You don’t f**king deserve it.”
Marlena gasped in outrage, and her lips parted to deliver what he was certain would be a scathing retort when he turned his back on her and walked away.
“Go home, Sierra. You did your good deed for the day,” he snarled down at her as he hailed a cab then jerked the door open as one pulled in beside him.
“John.” Her hand was on his arm again. Her ni**les were pressing tight and hard against her dress. Hell, there were days he wished she wasn’t his father’s goddaughter. It made it damned hard to give her the f**king he’d wanted to give her since he’d learned just how easily she could be had.
“I’ll deal with you later, you little troublemaker,” he snapped as she jerked her hand back. “Until then, stay the hell out of my way.”
“You had a right to know, and she had no right to an opportunity to lie to you.” She bit her lip, anger and conviction shining in her eyes, along with her tears.
“I’m not so easy to lie to,” he informed her sharply. “Fuck it, Sierra. Go play with your little artist boyfriends and leave me the hell alone.”
Sliding into the cab, he slammed the door, the sight of her pale, serious little face in his periphery as the cab pulled away. Giving the driver the address to his penthouse, John sat back in the seat and closed his eyes briefly.
Hell. He should have known she was cheating on him. He should have known the entire relationship was nothing more than a sham. In the year and a half they’d been together, not once had he felt what he knew he should have felt from Marlena. There had been no depth, no passion. He’d convinced himself that would change once they married. He should have known when his mother gave the news of his engagement such a cool reception that something was wrong.
When he walked into his penthouse half an hour later, he went directly to the bar. He’d been doing that more and more lately, he thought. Heading straight to the bar the minute he walked in the door.
He’d been doing it for the past three months.
What had ever convinced him that marrying Marlena was a good idea?
Oh yeah. She was cool. Calm. She demanded very little from him and gave even less.
He went for the whisky.
Sometimes, a man just needed a little false courage to make the decisions he had known for years were coming.
That was why he had asked Marlena to marry him. One last-ditch effort to conform to the life he had been born into, the society that was part of his birthright.
His mother’s family had been an integral part of Boston society for more than two hundred years. His last name might be Walker, but it was his mother’s Boston Brahmin side that had assured him carte blanche in the world he lived in.
It was a world he was leaving.
He accepted what he had sensed for a while now. He may have been born into this world, but it was one he found himself unable to accept now.
It was time to go.
Whisky burned its way to his stomach as he inhaled through the slow, blooming heat.
Hell, he had no right to come down on Sierra as he had. She was damned protective, and it wasn’t as though he hadn’t watched out for her in similar ways when he caught her lovers cheating on her in the past.
He’d always watched out for her, especially when she was involved with people he didn’t particularly approve of.
He downed another shot of the expensive liquor.
It was his own damned fault.
He’d had enough reservations about asking Marlena to marry him that he hadn’t asked his mother for the heirloom engagement ring to give her. He should have known when he hadn’t given her that damned ring that something was wrong.
A marriage of convenience. His money for her name. As though his family needed her f**king name. His mother’s patrician line opened doors for him that the so-called revered Genoa name would never open.
As he tossed back another shot, a key scraped in the door and it opened slowly.
Son of a bitch, she just didn’t give up, did she?
Marlena stepped into the foyer, her nose lifted with haughty arrogance.
She had definitely had a nose job and he hadn’t even cared enough to notice before.
“We need to discuss this.” Hip cocked, that nose tilted, model thin and superior.
“When did you get the nose job?” He narrowed his eyes.
Surprise shifted in her pale blue eyes. “Months ago.”
He shrugged. “We don’t have shit to talk about. Get your things and get out or I can have them delivered to you tomorrow.”
“Really, John, you act as though you had no clue as to what was going on.” She sniffed coolly. “You should have known. As perverted as you are, do you really believe any decent woman of class is going to want anything more than the bankroll backing you?”
He let his gaze drift slowly down and back up her reed-thin body. “You made a lousy whore then.”
Her lips thinned as she pulled the engagement ring from her finger and laid it calmly on the antique table next to her. “Very well, then, if that’s how you feel. Once you sober up, you’ll call.”
“Don’t bet your nose on it,” he grunted. “Get the hell out of here, Marlena, before I say something I’ll regret.”