As I’d sat down at the grand dining table in their apartment at Kensington Palace, Bennett still didn’t recognize me.

It was the first time I’d been invited over for dinner with the whole family, and it was surreal finally sitting across from the man who had ruined my father’s life. His soon-to-be wife sat next to him, looking adoringly into his eyes as he told some bloody story.

Nora listens on with interest, and they both laugh when he gets to the punchline. I follow suit, not having heard a word over the blood whooshing in my ears. I’d spent the entire past twelve hours staring at the ceiling of my bedroom, wondering what the fallout would be after tonight’s dinner.

Where would the pieces land? Would he finally be as miserable as me? Would Nora look at me like I was a monster?

Three delicious courses had already been served, and we were waiting for dessert to make its way out from the kitchen. The candles, dozens of them lining the table and surfaces around the room, twinkled off of the mirrored dining room walls.

I place my napkin down and survey the table, finally ready to break Bennett McAlister. My conscience struggles, tearing in two. On one side, my vendetta against her stepfather keeps me grounded. But on the other, Nora’s small, warm hand is placed on my leg under the table. Her fingers flirt innocently with the fabric of my pants; I don’t even think she’s aware that her thumb is stroking back and forth.

In my kamikaze mission to take them all down, I didn’t realize I’d actually fall for her. For this firecracker genius of an American, with her blunt ways and innocent assumptions of the world. Last night had been our final happy moment together, not that she had realized it. She’d thought it had brought us closer together, that I was a permanent object in her life that she would always be able to count on.

That was all about to come crashing down.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” I stare at Bennett, my nerves cooler than ice water.

He laughs a little, and Nora squeezes my leg. “Only so much as I’ve seen you around my house, mate.”

I don’t smile. “I don’t look like anyone to you, maybe someone you knew in your past. Take a hard look.”

His eyes roam over my face, not catching anything that he sees familiar. “I’m confused …”

“Asher, what is this about?” Nora’s voice is friendly but nervous.

“I thought you would have seen her in me somewhere. You do remember Jane, don’t you?”

Her name seems to spark him, and I see the color drain from his features. White hot vengeance circles in my stomach, and my heart is singing with evil glee.

“I’m sorry … I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” Bennett’s eyes are shifty as the two women watch the exchange.

His denial kicks me in the gut. “You’re a swine, a privileged pretty boy who took what he wanted and threw it away when he’d used it up!”

Nora’s face wears an expression of sheer confusion and raw upset. “Asher … what are you even talking about!?”

I take a deep breath, trying to collect my thoughts. “Ten years ago, your stepfather was the reason that my mother died. He’d started an affair with a married woman, one who loved him so dearly that she nearly abandoned her infant son and husband to carry on the tryst. You kept her dangling.” I turn to the accused now, my words molten lava. “Bringing her close, making her promises, and then cutting her off because you knew the bloody royals would turn on you if they ever knew what you’d been doing. You ruined her, turned her into a desperate, shell of a person. That night you called for her to come, she drank too much, and threatened you. Didn’t she?! She wanted to expose your relationship, to run away with you. I know all the details, I’ve obsessed over my mother’s murder for ten years. You told her to get out, that you were ending things and you’d deny it all if she went to the press. You basically put the keys in her hand, made her drive into the pitch black night while she was legless.”

Rachel makes a choked, strangled sob, her eyes glued to Bennett as he stares straight at me. Nora is silent, and I can’t turn to her because I don’t want to see the look on her face.

“What do you think her last thoughts were before she hit the water? When she went over the side of the bridge, do you think she saw my face? Or do you think she was still crying over you breaking her heart?”

Sour spit coats the inside of my mouth, and a giant ulcer-size hole in my stomach burns with the relief of finally getting all of the built up rage out of my system. My bones feel tired, my shoulders sag with cathartic pressure.

“Bennett … what is he talking about?” Rachel mumbles through the fist that is raised to her mouth, her teeth making indent marks in the skin.

His head whips to her, and I can see the sweat on his brow. “Rachel … I, I wasn’t a good man back then. I was a different person, with different priorities. I never meant for anyone … I never meant for her to get hurt.”

“I’m going to be sick.” She rushes up from the table and flees the room.

Bennett’s chair scrapes the floor, but before he can follow her, I’m standing and pointing. “Sit down.”

He eyes me as if I’m about to jump across the table and strangle him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry … I never meant for your family to get hurt.”

“It’s about ten years too late for that. Mourning at her funeral, pretending you didn’t know her … you’re the worst kind of man. And you’ll only realize what it feels like to have your soul ripped out if the same thing is done to you.”

I turn to Nora for the first time since I started to derail this crazy train. Tears slide down her cheeks, and her eyes hold a mix of sympathy for me, and astonishment at the scene that just played out.

“Since you stepped foot on my homeland, I was waiting to meet you. Plotting out how I would approach you, get you to talk to me and eventually fall for me. Every action I’ve taken, every time I flirted with you or touched your body … it was all in the hopes that one day I’d be here.”

She gasps, and I feel like I’m ripping my own heart out of my chest. Before tonight, I thought my soul had been black with the soot of my mistakes. Now I knew that the color black was a shade I could no longer use in description for it, that I was so past gone there was no word that compared.

I turn to Bennett. “I fucked your stepdaughter, took her innocence. Just like you took mine. Just like you took my mothers. And now, Rachel will know what a bloody prick you are, how you’ve tarnished her family.”

If there was a word strong enough for the look of betrayal written all over Nora’s face, I’d use it now. My heart felt like a ground up piece of meat, and my head ached like someone was slamming a brick against it. I’d done it, finally come into Bennett’s life and mucked it all up like he’d done mine.

Job done, I turned on my heel and began to walk out of the room.

But his voice stops me. “I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know. I should have come to you and your father when she died, I should have stopped it long before that. I should have been a better man. You will never know how truly sorry I am for all of it. But … I do know that you may have just ruined all of my happiness, and I’m the one who feels sorry for you. Because your mother would have wanted better than this for you. She adored you, she revered you. Jane would never have wanted you to hold this rage and coldness.”

I don’t turn around, I just feel the daggers of his words cut deep into the flesh of my back.

It should feel like an epiphany in my muscles, a surge in my system. Completing my mission, avenging my mother … I’d always imagined it would be glorious.

But, as difficult as it is to admit it, Bennett is right. The victory feels empty, spiritless.

I’m left with nothing but a heavy heart and a confused conscience.