Do Me Right (De Toi à Moi #1)

Thirty Five

The second Ryder unlocked the door, I stepped inside his apartment. I leaned back against the kitchen counter and crossed my arms as I looked at him sternly. He walked past me, towards the fridge, ignoring my obvious frustration.

“Do you want anything to dr–”

“Don’t stall,” I said, eyes once again narrowed to slits.

He ran a hand through his hair before opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water. I raised an eyebrow at him as he uncapped it and took a slow sip. “She’s right,” he said after wiping his mouth and placing the bottle down on the counter. “I used her. It was wrong of me and if I could turn back time I would do it differently. But I was young and stupid.” He shook his head.

“I didn’t have that much experience with finding new clients, it’s sort of a weird business to just find clients, you know. They usually come to you… anyway I, I was only just starting out in sales and Dad had put me on this project. He’d had plans to go international for quite a while now and Clarke Investissement was the perfect fit for us. They were one of the biggest financial holdings in France. Merging with them would be a goldmine.

“Dad decided this was one of our biggest chances to make it internationally. And since I was the only one who was fluent in French and Dad trusted enough for something as major as this, it was my job to get them to agree to working with us. I was about twenty three years old when I went to Paris for the first time. Of course getting into the company was harder than I’d first thought,” he chuckled. “And I tried so many times but I failed. Until I met Ellie.”

I gulped. I had a feeling I knew exactly where this was going. “You used her to–”

He nodded. “I told you, I’m not proud of it.”

“So how, I mean what, what happened?” I knew what was coming, but I wanted to hear him say it.

“I saw her when I was leaving the building one day. We smiled when we passed each other in the lobby and when she started talking to receptionist I realized she was an important player in the company. She was the big boss’ daughter. It was stupid but I didn’t wanna fail my father so I saw this as my way in.”

“You seduced her to get what you wanted.”

“Yes,” he admitted softly.

“But then… why did you marry her?” My forehead wrinkled in confusion. “It was just a game to you.”

“I guess after a while, I started to care for her. She was obviously madly in love with me. I’d made her fall in love with me. And I was scared that if I left her, her the deal would be off. The second the deal was done, I thought I was done as well. I thought I could come back home, but Dad wanted to keep me there. Someone from Jackson Palmer had to stay there anyway and since I’d made sure this deal happened, it would be me. I moved between Chicago and Paris a lot. I’d spend a month in one place and then move on to the other again.

“But obviously I couldn’t leave Ellie. It would jeopardize the whole thing. So I stayed with her. And after two years I… I don’t know I guess a part of me thought that was it, you know. I would have to stay in Paris and Ellie wasn’t so bad, she took care of me. She loved me. And after lying to her about my feelings I guess, I guess I started to believe I loved her too.”

“But you didn’t,” I pointed out.

“No. No I didn’t. But if my life was good, you know. So I stupidly asked her to marry me. And we were married for a few months and then suddenly things started to go wrong… I suppose I started to feel guilty. I hated myself for what I was doing. I wasn’t in love with her. She deserved better. She deserved someone who loved her back.”