Page 91 of Bared Betrayal

Everything stills. Every sound is muted. It’s like God himself grabbed the Earth and stopped it from turning.

“No,” I breathe out in disbelief. “No.”

Gabriel pulls his hand through his hair, his shoulders slanted. “Yes,” he murmurs as if he, too, can’t believe what he just said. “Yes, I’m in love with you, Kallie.”

My knees give way beneath me, and I slide down the wall as his words sink in like an anchor spearing through the sea, crashing against the ocean floor. All I hear is the sound of my heart shattering into a thousand shards of glass now lodged in my very soul.

“Sorry, that took so long.” Sebastian walks in, his gaze darkening when he finds me on the floor. “What the hell is going on here?”

I wipe my nose and get to my feet. “Nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.” His glare cuts to Gabriel. “What the fuck did you do? Did you say something to her?”

Gabriel merely steps back, and I sniff before pushing myself off the wall.

“It’s fine, Sebastian. Just—” I breathe in deep even though it aches “—just take me home. We’re done here.”

Twenty-Five

GABRIEL

“Fuck!”I hurl my keyboard across the room. Another dead end. I have been practically living in my office for the last three days, trying to find out who is threatening her.

I slump back in my chair, rubbing my tired eyes. I haven’t been sleeping. The ghost of her haunts me every time I try. She’s always there, lying on my sheets, her legs spread, that little blue jewel sticking out between her perfect ass cheeks. Or perched against my bedroom window, naked, writhing, begging for my cock. This morning while I showered, I could hear her soft moans, see her beautiful pussy teasing me from the reflection in the glass. I was so fucking hard, all it took was three strokes before I shot my cum against the tiled wall. I can’t even jerk off in peace without having her inside my head.

She’s my obsession. My vice. And now I can’t even close my eyes without seeing her face as she leaves with Sebastian—the way she silently tells me it’s over. That it never really fucking started in the first place.

My cell phone sits next to my hand on my desk. It’s taunting me. I must have picked it up a hundred times to call her. The longing to hear her voice is excruciating. The empty feeling inside my chest is driving me mad, and no matter how many times I tell myself she’s doing the right thing by walking away from me, I don’t believe it. I can’t.

And while I’ve been desperate to get Kallie out of my head, I had to take Victoria on that goddamn dinner date last night. Talk about intense suffering.

“Mr. King, is everything okay?” Denise walks in, holding another wireless keyboard.

“No, I keep hitting a dead end.”

“Is this about Agent Evans? I’m still waiting to hear from her boss. I can try again.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m handling her myself. I had that dinner with her last night.”

“How was it?” She takes a seat on the corner of my desk. “Was it as bad as you thought it would be?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“It was worse.”

“Oh.”

“She kept asking me personal questions. Like where did I grow up? What’s my mom’s name? How did I start Sterling Shipping?”

“You’re right. She sounds horrible.”

“I’ve never liked aggressive women.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad.”

Thinking back to the night with Victoria, it was, in fact, that bad. She was pushy and asked all these questions that had me wishing for a bottle of Xanax. I felt like I was being interrogated with all the personal questions. Finally, she gave up on getting to know me. I was relieved until she started hinting at everything she wanted to do to me back in my apartment. It didn’t matter how many times I redirected the conversation, she always found a way back to us fucking. And I would rather turn my balls inside out than have sex with her.