Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 419

"How did it go with Imelda's father?"

A slow smile spread across his face, the kind of smile a man wears when he has just won a war without firing a shot. "Imelda will no longer be a name that inconveniences either of us. Not after tomorrow morning."

"What did you do?"

"I apologized to her father." He set down his fork. "I took the blame. I told him I should have been clearer with my grandmother from the beginning, that I let the situation fester until his daughter was dragged across the world on a promise that was never mine to make. And then I told him the truth. That even if I married Imelda, she would never be happy, because she would never have my love. I would give her my name, my money, my protection, everything a woman could ask for, except the one thing that matters, and I would be doing her a great cruelty to pretend otherwise."

I nodded slowly. "And he accepted that?"

"He did." Dominic's eyes gleamed. "Because I did not leave it at words. I offered him a deal as compensation. A business acquisition I had been working on for weeks, worth billions. I signed it over to him on the spot, and the man was so happy he almost cried, Celeste. He promised to come take his daughter away from my grandmother first thing tomorrow morning. The Imelda chapter is closed."

My stomach dropped. "Dominic. You gave him something worth billions?"

"It was worth it."

"No." I set my hands flat on the counter. "No, that is too much. You worked hard for weeks to acquire that deal, and you just handed it over?"

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