GISELLE VON HOWARD

Patrick's POV

I was as hard as wood, fists clenched so tightly they were pounding nails into flesh. I churned with rage in my belly as I replayed the meeting over and over again—Giselle walking away with head held high in victory, brother lagging behind, leaving me panting for air in shame.

Her self-satisfied, idiotic grin provoked another rage simmering below me to a boil. How the bloody hell had she managed it, then?

Becky was sitting beside me, her hand on my arm, but I hardly even noticed. She was droning on about some inconsequential rubbish, no doubt attempting to soothe my wounded pride, but I was hearing nothing but Giselle. The woman I'd manipulated.

The woman to whom I had made no vows.

The woman who had just told me and the rest of mankind that she was everything. "Patrick, is something the matter?" Becky's hand rested on my chest. I barely looked at her. "Not now, Becky."

She scowled, obviously irritated that I was not meeting her eyes, but before she could protest again, the announcer's voice thundered over the ballroom. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is our honour to present one of the most powerful men in his generation, Lord Benjamin Von Howard." The audience was quiet. Their mouths open, eyes staring at stage. Even Becky was speechless.

Lord Benjamin Von Howard. A man so powerful, so enigmatic, that even the world's wealthiest business tycoons could not even attempt to comprehend him. I didn't know he was right behind, but long before he appeared, his name had reached me with wonder and terror. And in he marched. There was nothing else required of him to proclaim.

With his deliberate but naturally stride, Lord Benjamin walked alone on his ow deliberate pace. He looked very simple, no flamboyant suit or jewelry—simply a man who did not have to shout but his glory shouted because already he possessed the world.

The boisterous applause that summoned him to the rostrum tasted of fear, however. They were quiet and expected him to speak. He raised his finger, and the room breathed as one. "Thank you all for coming tonight." He said with his deep commanding voice."it's an honor to have such distinguished guests in the house tonight and I am most grateful that you're here." There was murmur of voices that circulated the room.

Lord Benjamin's hesitation, his sharp eyes roving around the room, came before his words again.

" Today is not a holiday, but an epiphany. You may have known me as a businessman, a leader, a friend. But there is one title that I hold dearer than all of them." His eyes furrowed and smoothed a bit. "A father." The audience trembled with expectation.

"A father to a daughter who's the world to me," he continued, his voice groaning with pride. "A daughter whom I've loved, cared for, and watched grow into a beautiful woman."bWhispers were being spread. A daughter?

No one had ever heard of or known Lord Benjamin's heir. And then my mind went blank.

He turned to the onlookers, his words shattering my entire world. "It is with my highest pride to present to you all. my daughter, my heiress—Giselle Von Howard." What? Gasps, whispers, amazement, stunned silence filled the room 

My excitement thudded in my brain like a jackrabbit as I looked at the stage. And there she was. On the stage. Giselle. My wife.

No—no, she's my ex-wife.

She strode across the stage in the same rigid restraint she always had employed, slow, measured, firm step by firm step.

She was not frightened. She was acting as she had been created to act. There was a wash of emotion all over me all at once—surprise, confusion, wrath, duplicity. Giselle. was a Von Howard? My Giselle? The girl that I'd fooled was nothing by herself?bThe girl that I'd fooled was nothing by herself?

The woman that I'd traded for Becky? She'd been doing it the entire time. I scarce had time to draw breath as she splashed out of the water swimming and clung to her father's hands. The man to our listeners today proclaiming publicly her his heir.

Giselle to the listeners, tears streaming, eyes closed.

"Thank you all for coming tonight," she declared, in rolling, unison one-pitched chant. "Having the opportunity to share all of this with my dad and all of you, it's everything to me." There was applause, but still too the guests reeling from shock.

Giselle smiled—a no longer wide-eyed, sycophantic one I had first met, but a firm, self-assured one.

She turned around at the back of the podium and disappeared into the crowd, laughing with her father as she still floated further and further away. And was gone. Back into the crowd, back into open arms of authority that had first enfolded her.I stood there in shock, my mouth hanging open, gulping. Reality hit me like a freight train. Giselle never needed me. I never was her knight in shining armor. She was mine. And I had left her.

The weight of my own foolishness murdered me, choked me. She had been holding me back, all along, herself. Those afternoons I had thought she was shy, demure, dainty. She had been watching me. Studying me. And I had been loving.I had taught her that I did not love her because of what she was.I had loved her because of what I had thought she was—something less than me. And then, in side remarking and gossiping, I saw the bitter truth.

I was the one hurt. "You know, Patrick."Becky's voice did finally crack, her grip tight on my arm. "Are you okay?"

I turned and spun to her, and really looked at her for the first time. The woman whom I'd left my wife for. The woman whom I'd eloped with. The woman now so small, so unimportant. My stomach churned with guilt. I've lost Giselle. And my fault.

Where she'd had a home once, a emptiness in me.

 This wasn't the way things were supposed to be.

I wasn't going to let them slip away.

I was going to claim her as mine again.

Regardless of whether it was something that I'd ever do again in my life.