Caitlin Crews - Castelli's Virgin Widow

She frowned at him. “Why would you do that? Why not make me file things in some basement?”

“Because, Stepmother,” Luca said in that slow, dark way of his that should not have gotten tangled up in all her breathless memories of that kiss, not when it was clearly meant to be a blow, “that would only delay the inevitable. I am quite certain you won’t make it the allocated three years. But if you leave after three days? Three weeks? All the better.”

She stiffened. “I won’t leave.”

He nodded toward the group of people inside, all eyeing her with ill-disguised hostility.

“Each and every person in that room was handpicked by me. They earned their positions here. They function together as a tight and usually congenial team. But I have informed them that all of that is a thing of the past, as you must be shoehorned in whether we like it or not.” He turned his gaze on her. “As you can see, they’re thrilled.”

Kathryn’s stomach sank to her feet, because she understood what he’d done. Her pathetic little fantasies of distinguishing herself somehow through hard work in some forgotten corner of the office where she could quietly shine crumbled all around her.

Her mother would be furious. She’d claim that this was exactly what had happened when Kathryn tried to defy her and strike out on her own. Kathryn felt a sinking feeling in her gut, as if maybe Rose was right.

And maybe it was hideously disloyal, maybe it made her a terrible person and an ungrateful child, but Kathryn really, really didn’t want that to be true.

“You painted a target on my back,” she said now, her lips feeling numb. “You did it deliberately.”

This time, Luca’s smile reached his eyes, but that didn’t make it any warmer. Or this situation any better. “I did.”

Then he pushed open the conference room door and fed her straight to the wolves.

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