But then again, what kind of a judge of character was I, really? What kind of discerner of the truth?
It was an epic joke to think I could see behind a person’s façade to their true self.
“Wes never said anything to you about it?” I challenged. “Or Evan? Because they both knew. All along. They’ve both been playing some kind of game with me.” At that moment, a vivid memory popped into my brain of Wes Ryder topping the rise of the overlook, and starting in surprise when he’d seen me. I’d thought his shock was strange, since he’d gone up there in search of me. But my presence hadn’t been what had taken him aback. The fact that I was the spitting image of Elizabeth Madaster had.
My mind went back to the first moment I’d met Evan, face to face. Now his careful reserve combined with those sudden flashes of heat and desire took on a whole new meaning.
“No, Anna. I swear I didn’t know,” Valeria said breathlessly, clamping the steering wheel hard.
Fury suddenly swept through me. It felt like a handhold. I grabbed at it in desperation. I recalled how Evan had claimed to fall for me through my art, and how I’d believed him, because I’d wanted to. I’d needed to believe he saw me like no one else had… like no one else could. In reality, he’d been seeing another woman the entire time. I—Anna Solas—had been invisible.
Insignificant.
That he’d manipulated me in that particular way, using my art, my unique means for expressing myself to the world, felt like the most infuriating betrayal to me at that moment.
He had noticed my similarity to Elizabeth through the dating site, found out about my life. I’d handed myself to him on a platter by using that dating service. He realized I worked for Tommy Higoshi. How convenient that’d been, that we coincidentally shared that mutual contact.
Evan had schemed to meet me.
That’s why Tommy had felt compelled to tell me on the eve of my wedding that Evan had made of point of asking to see my paintings even before he’d joined the dating site. At the time, I recalled thinking Tommy’s manner had been odd when he’d told me that, like he’d been trying to give me some kind of coded message. Now I understood.
Tommy had worried something was unusual about Evan’s focus on me. But he hadn’t been able to put his finger on what, exactly. Tommy and Evan had become friends after Elizabeth passed. Tommy had never seen Evan’s first wife.
He’d never realized we looked almost exactly alike.
Evan had used Tommy as well.
Anger burned in me so uncomfortably that I pushed my fist against my gut.
“Are you sure there isn’t some other explanation for all of this?” Valeria asked me anxiously.
“I don’t see how,” I said, staring the grayish, steel-blue clouds crouching menacingly over the mountains. “I have a picture of a photo of her on my phone. I look exactly like Evan’s first wife. How many explanations could there be for why he’d want to marry me?”
Valeria was probably worried about the job she’d taken, but I’d passed the point of believing I made a difference to her happiness. I was inconsequential.
I would be gone tomorrow.
We didn’t say anything else to each other on the trip back to Les Jumeaux.
The Gothic lines of Les Jumeaux’s pitched roofs and towers looked much the same to me. But the house and its beautiful mountain and lake landscape had forever changed. How could I have ever believed that I was a unique part of this place, that my life would become intertwined with it? I was barely a blink of the eye in the grand scheme of things.
My stupidity hurt almost as much as my acid anger at Evan.
Ignoring Valeria as she called out to me, I climbed the grand staircase. Not until I sat securely in the seating area of our suite did I allow myself to ask the questions.
What would I do? Where would I go?
Should I confront Evan? Demand answers?
Would it give me even an ounce of satisfaction to do so?
No, it wouldn’t.
That answer came to me, swift and certain. It would not help me to confront him about his lies and manipulations, about how he’d turned my life upside down just to gratify his obsession. In fact, it might make matters worse, to discover the truth.
Vividly, the memory of him holding my hands and trying to convey to me the importance of the prenuptial agreement leapt into my mind’s eye. I recalled the crass irritation of his lawyer.
“Evan has provided you with much, much more than the clothes on your back, even in the case of divorce. You’re a very fortunate young woman, Ms. Solas.”