Page 74 of Claimed By the Villain

“Yes. Anyway, it wasn’t a gun. At least not at first. It was photographs. Doctored ones, of you holding a boy, with the woman talking to me standing next to you.”

“What did you think?”

“I knew it was a lie.”

“Why?”

“She told me you’d abandoned your son because of me. If you had a kid, you’d have told me. We talked about it that day, I asked you. Besides, I knew you’d never abandon him.”

“You’ve got a lot of faith in me, Jackie. It’s stupid to trust a monster.”

She’s straddling me, facing me, fiddling with the collar of my T-shirt as she talks. But after I say that, she lifts her eyes to meet mine.

“Not justanymonster.Mymonster. The one I spent years obsessed with.”

Her words hit me hard, and I yank her into a brutal kiss. When we break apart, we’re both breathing hard.

“There’s something else that set off alarms in my head right away,” she says after a few seconds.

“What?”

“The fact she knew about us. All these years, I’ve been alone. You or your men followed me in the shadows. How could she possibly know we were together?”

“I don’t have the answer yet, but you can be sure I’ll find whoever came after you.”

“I shoved her.”

“What?”

“I pretended to believe her story, then shoved her and ran. I told her she might’ve fooled me if she hadn’t thrown a kid into it.”

“Would she have fooled you?”

“No. Not for a second. I’m good at connecting the dots, and everything was out of place.”

I nod in agreement.

“Were you scared?”

“No.”

I brush both thumbs under her eyes.

“Then why did you cry?”

“For you. Whoever came after me today went to the trouble of staging an entire performance. They were almost perfect.”

“They wanted you to come willingly. They’d never get close to you under normal circumstances because of the bodyguards. They took the chance they had.”

“If I were some jealous lunatic, I would’ve fallen for it.”

“Aren’t you?” I ask, curious.

“I refuse to answer that.”

“You don’t have to. I already know,” I say, and she bristles.

“You’re so damn arrogant! Who was it that dragged me off the dance floor when you saw me sandwiched between those two guys?”