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Holly’s eyes narrow. “Oh, so maybe that part was a teensy little lie. Doesn’t change that we have a daughter. That’s almost more important than a silly little slip of paper anyway, don’t you think? That’s flesh and blood.”
“Olivia is Violet’s mother.” I glare at her. “You left her on my doorstep. You forfeited your rights to be her mother the moment you abandoned her and there’s nothing you can do to change that fact. Especially now that you’re fucking kidnapping people.”
Holly shrugs a shoulder and stands back. Her two goons, a pair of big blonde morons with a distinctly Eastern European slant to their eyes, flank her on either side. I don’t even look at them. I’ll let them think that they’re nothing, beneath me. Give them the impression that they don’t even faze me.
“I think you’ll find that your stance will change once you hear what I have to say. After all, I think I’ve been very nice with my requests?—”
“Your psychopath demands and stalking, you mean?”
Holly smirks. “Whatever you want to call it, my love.”
She folds her arms under her bustline. It’s a subtle way to draw attention to her chest, just like the way she cocks her hip to the side is supposed to make her look more appealing, I bet. All it does is prove what a fucking slimeball she is, thinking that she’ll get what she wants out of me with sex appeal.
I’m not that Reese anymore.
“You see, I was thinking the other day how this little dance of ours has been going on far too long. I was alright allowing you to cling to the notion of being with your little Cinderella slut. Sweep her off her feet, bring her into your castle, happily ever after, blah, blah, blah. Let you have the fantasy for a while before you logically came back to reality. But it’s not really fair, is it? That you give it to her and not to me. Not to the mother of your firstborn child. So, now, I have to do the desperate thing. The ‘crazy’ thing. Doesn’t it suck, how it’s ‘crazy’ to do everything in your power to be with your child when you’re a woman, but a man can do damn near anything he wants with any woman that happens to shake her ass in front of him and it’s just perfectly fine?”
I scoff. “You had to hire these fucking idiots to drug me and drag me here just to discuss gender politics?”
“I’m just proving my point, smart ass.” She chuckles. “Which is very simple, really: I deserve what’s mine. You, my daughter, that house you live in, the spotlight… all of it. And you’ll give it to me, because if you don’t, I have some very nasty plans for Olivia and it won’t matter if you leave me because you won’t have her to go to.”
My arms flex angrily against the ropes. I nearly lunge at her, even tied to the chair, but her goons are at my sides in an instant. They shove me back down by my shoulders and pin me there.
“What did you do to Olivia?”
“Nothing. Yet. But I will get nastier unless you do the very simple task of making me your fiancée and announcing to the entire world once and for all the truth: we’re together, we had a kid, and Olivia was just a gold-digging little whore who tried to baby-trap you until I came back into your life.”
“You’re crazy.”
A flicker of irritation crosses her face. A second later, I’ve got the barrel of a gun pointed right at my face. It’s eerie, how steady Holly holds that gun. Like it doesn’t even faze her she’s literally got death in her hands.
And then I think…
What happens to Olivia if she does it?
Who protects her if I’m gone?
“I’m not crazy,” she says evenly. “I’m ambitious. There’s nothing wrong with a little ambition, but there is something wrong with a man who won’t do right by his children, don’t you think? I’ll say it one last time, plainly for you, Reese Dalton: you give me what I want or there won’t be a trace of your precious little Olivia or that runt in her belly. And I won’t give you the sweet release of death to alleviate the guilt I know you’ll feel. You’ll live to a ripe old age, knowing you could have stopped it so simply by taking responsibility for what you’ve done.”
Holly tilts her head. One look in her eyes says she’s not bluffing. She’d kill Olivia. She’d kill our child. She’d spill innocent blood just to get me, my fame, whatever fucking glory she thinks this is going to bring her.
And if I let that happen, it would be my fault.
All of this, from the beginning, has been my fault. Olivia wouldn’t even be in this situation if I hadn’t gotten tangled up with Holly. She’d be blissfully living her own life somewhere else and I’d be nothing but a guy on the television she barely even noticed.
I owe her the peace of that life I stole from her.
“Alright.” The taste of that word is bitter in my mouth. Like I’m giving up, giving in. Like I’m making a deal with the devil I know I can’t win. “But you have to let her go from wherever she is. If this is gonna fly, she needs to be cut off from dealing with any of this. Just… let her go in peace.”
Holly seems to mull over my request. She wiggles her head back and forth, humming softly. “Alright,” she says, surprising the shit out of me. “But…”
Oh, no.
“I think it’s only fair that you make sure to break her heart. You know; to really keep her away. Forever.”
54
OLIVIA
