Vows of Treachery: Claimed by His Ruthless Brother novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Door He Would Not Open

Rhys blocks Emmett at the door, Annika tears up the forged proxy, and Emmett tells her to ask where Rhys was the night of the fire.

"Show me," I said.

Rhys turned his head. "Annika."

"He says I signed it. Let me see what I signed."

Emmett crossed the floor and put the folder in my hands, gently, with both hands.

The paper was cream and heavy, with a gold notary seal stamped in the corner.

My name was signed at the bottom.

It was close to my signature. The A was too tall and the loop on the k was too round.

"Read the date," Emmett said softly. "Tonight, six-fifteen. You signed it at the cocktail hour, honey. You were upset about the fire anniversary. You don't remember."

I looked at the notary line.

Six-fifteen.

"At six-fifteen I was in the hair salon on Oak Street," I said. "Delphine drove me. She sat in the next chair for two hours."

"You're confused."

"Delphine can tell me where I was at six-fifteen, can't she?"

He opened his mouth, and for the first time all night he had nothing ready.

Rhys had not moved from the door.

"You have one minute to leave my home," he said to the security men. "Then I call the building and tell them two men are in my apartment without being invited."

The two guards looked at Emmett.

"Wait in the hall," Emmett told them, and they went.

Rhys closed the door on them with one hand.

"Annie." Emmett took a step toward me. His voice dropped into the tone I had loved for two years. "I know how it sounds. But you're not thinking clearly. You've been so fragile since the fire, and Rhys is using that."

"Don't," I said.

"Who stayed up with you when you woke screaming? Who made you soup every night for a year?"

"A man who planned to leave me with an apartment and a very nice goodbye."

"You heard a conversation that I said for effect. I was talking a big game to Delphine, I was drunk, and you cut it up."

"You weren't drunk," Rhys said. "You had one glass of champagne and it's still on the stage with her ring in it."

Emmett turned on him.

"Stay out of this. You've waited years for a reason to take her shares."

"I've waited years for you to stop lying to a woman who trusted you."

"Oh, that's rich."

I stepped between them.

The folder was still in my hands. I tore the proxy in half, then in half again, and put the pieces in Emmett's palm.

"My signature has a flat A," I said. "Your forger needs practice."

He looked down at the paper in his hand.

Then he did something I had never seen him do in two years. He stopped smiling.

"Fine," Emmett said. "You want the truth, Annie? Here's some truth."

He nodded at his brother.

"Ask him where he was the night of the fire."

I felt Rhys go still beside me.

"Ask him why in two years he never once came to see you in the hospital. Not a card, not a call. He came to our wedding and stared at you and never said a word. You think he's your friend? Ask why he hated you before he knew you."

"That's enough," Rhys said, very low.

"Is it?" Emmett looked at me. "Ask him."

I turned and looked at Rhys.

His face was the same face as at the gala. Closed, level, no help in it.

"Rhys," I said.

His left hand moved to his cuff and pressed the button flat, as he did every time I had ever seen him.

"Is it true? You never came?"

He said nothing.

Emmett dropped the torn pieces on the floor and smiled again, small and bright and certain.

"There. You see?"

"Get out," I said to Emmett.

"Annie."

"I said get out of the house I'm standing in."

Rhys opened the door.

Emmett went through it, past his own guards, and the elevator took him down.

The door shut. The lock turned.

For a long time neither of us spoke.

"Well?" I said.

"Well what?"

"Where were you?"

Rhys looked at the pieces of paper on the floor.

"Go to bed, Annika," he said. "The vote is Monday. We have two days."

"That isn't an answer."

"No," he said, and picked up the torn proxy, one piece at a time, without looking at me.

I stood there a minute longer.

Then I went to the guest room and shut the door.

I stood with my ear against the wood, because I wanted to know what he would do alone.

A phone rang once in the hall, and Rhys answered it in a quiet voice.

"No," he said. "She doesn't know. Keep it that way."

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