The hairs on the back of her neck stood up at the idea. No, she wouldn’t run. Why should she? She’d done nothing wrong. Instead, she would face him down and force him to admit the truth to her face.

Standing, she found the latch and turned it. Light in the corridor stung her eyes but she moved her feet in the direction of Clay’s office. The heavy wooden door bounced off the wall as she shoved her way in. Jack jumped, straightening at the sudden noise, but then grimaced when he took in her expression.

Clay did not react, his face impassive, almost as if he’d expected her.

“Florence!” Her father shot out of the chair, his mouth falling open. “I thought I told you to stay away from here.”

She paid him no attention. Indeed, her concentration remained on the man behind the desk. Somehow she managed to stand there, glaring at him while her heart lay shredded in her chest. Any hope she’d harbored that he wasn’t as terrible and heartless as people said was now destroyed. No, he wasn’t as terrible as his reputation. He was worse.

“How could you?” she forced out. “My grandmother’s house, Clay. This whole time you were planning this . . . swindle.”

He said nothing. Offered up no defense. His dark eyes were flat, accepting. She wanted to shake him, throw something at him. Anything to get a reaction from him. Shouldn’t he apologize? Grovel? Something?

“Florence,” her father reprimanded. “Your presence here is hardly appropriate.”

“Have you nothing to say?” she asked Clay. “No explanation for your actions?”

“Every word of it is true.” His deep voice was clear, the damning words cruelly enunciated. “I offer no explanation, other than this is what your father deserves. An eye for an eye.”

“It’s hardly the same,” she snapped. “My grandfather built that house for my grandmother. She’s older, not a family just starting out. You are robbing an older woman of her beloved home, not to mention me of my future.”

“You’re right. It’s hardly the same. Your grandmother owns three other homes and has the means to buy any property she wishes. She won’t be forced to live in a Lower East Side tenement.”

“You are a cruel, heartless bastard,” Daddy chimed in with. “Rotten to your very core. Getting what you want today certainly won’t change that.”

“Probably not,” Clay admitted. “But it has been immensely satisfying to see you lose your family home.”

Her father snatched the contracts off the desk and tore them in half, growling with the effort.

Clay lifted a shoulder. “Crain has signed copies and he’s filing them with the city as we speak. Ripping up your copies accomplishes nothing.”