Page 37 of Bastard

“With a body like yours, who cares what color towel is wrapped around you?”

I gasp. He was never this bold when we were married. Not in a sexy, flirty way.

He smiles.

I stare. Dios, he’s flirting with me.

“You said you kept up with your gun practice? What weapon did you use?”

“A Glock.”

His smile broadens. The devil knows exactly which weapon. It’s his gun, the same one he gave to me years ago.

“Can you handle a weapon with an auto round? On your list, you included a Glock G30S.”

“Yes.”

He produces the gun from beneath his suit jacket and hands it to me. “The shooting range is located just off the upper deck on the port side. I’ve also hired a physical combat professional to train you. I want you capable of taking down an enemy twice your size.”

“This is quite the party you’ve invited me to.”

“You prepare for the worst or risk death. Always. Yet you enjoy being taken by surprise, isn’t that right?”

I bite my lip, struggling with the innuendo in his words. Taken by surprise by him? On my back? On all fours?

Bent over a sink.

A flush warms my cheeks. No. What am I thinking? “No. I detest surprises. Anyway, what does it matter? I’ve been taking care of myself all this time without you or Diego’s help.”

He snorts. “Believe what you will.”

My eyebrows arch. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Do you truly believe I didn’t know where you were, who you were with, or what you were doing every goddamn day?”

“What?” I shriek.

Alarm bells go off, one after another.

He sent a bodyguard to Nmimpi.

Before that, he was in Rome. I thought his being there was a one-off. A momentary lapse in reason.

Prior to that, I’d been living in San Diego, anxiously waiting for Madelyn to resurface. Wait—there’d been one incident when a man attempted to mug me. I got away and never said a word about what happened to anyone. Even when his death was all over the news the next day.

There was Cabo. That poor bartender.Hismen.

Before that fateful trip, I was attending San Diego State University. Part of the condition of my leaving Copenhagen was that I befriend Madelyn and report any suspicious activity back to Diego. But I remember the sensation of being watched, though it wasn’t anything I’d admit to Diego.

I bite my lip. And it all began in Copenhagen, didn’t it? Where I was too lost, too angry, to notice anyone or anything.

All this time he kept tabs on me?

“You had me followed?”

He has the nerve to shrug.

“You had that purse thief in San Diego killed.”