Page 19 of Mr. Strategic

It all made it horribly real, and for a moment his dark office with the heavy furniture and wooden bookshelves swam before my eyes.

But I steeled myself, nodded my head when it was expected.

“He’s a very wealthy man,” my lawyer said dryly. “You will be a very comfortable woman, Mrs. Carrington.”

“I don’t care about that,” I said, feeling trickles of fear down my spine.

Was that a sound down the hallway?

“I just want out. As fast as you can get it done. I don’t want any of Michael’s money.”

He looked astounded at this point of view, and turned in stunned silence to his filing cabinet to get more forms for me to sign.

I tightened my fists as I looked at the documents.

Mrs. Michael Carrington

Soon, not anymore.

Suddenly, there was a hand clapped firmly over my mouth and someone was dragging me out of the chair and across the carpet.

I heard the crinkle of the papers I had just signed as they were crushed in his angry fist.

Then I was set on my feet at the end of the hallway, pressed up against the wall so hard I could barely breathe.

“You trying to fuck the lawyer?” Michael’s angry voice grated out in my ear.

I was so startled and stung by his accusation.

“No! You’re the one with a girlfriend!”

He twisted me around to glare at me, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. Unusually, I saw that more locks of his white-gold hair had come out of his usual neat styling and were falling into the cut-glass bones of his face.

“Christ, Lavender, I don’t have a girlfriend. Is that what you think? It’s just sex, that’s all. Just a meaningless fuck now and again at work. It means nothing. You’re the one I love.”

“And I’m not allowed to have meaningless sex?”

“No. You aren’t.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Too fucking bad.”

His hand surrounded the front of my throat and he pulled me after him down the hallway and into the parking garage.

I struggled in his arms, but he was too powerful. He smelled like that expensive cologne, his scent enveloping me as he carried me back to my Jeep.

No one saw the town’s superstar surgeon dragging his wife through the parking garage and shoving her in the passenger seat.

But even if they had . . . who would be in more danger if they tried to stop him?

Michael got in the driver’s seat and reached over and yanked the glove compartment open.

“Here,” he said, dropping a square box in my lap.

Not knowing how to escape, I opened it and a massive pear-cut diamond glinted up at me.

“For you,” my husband said. “An engagement ring upgrade. Your wedding band will fit right beside it.”