“I told him I was going to marry Nicola within a few weeks. There was so much worry in his face, but he didn’t say anything other than to make sure she signed a prenup. I promised him I would. I had one drawn up that outlined that she could never touch any of the family business or money, but that if something happened between the two of us, she would get a fair share from my personal wealth.”
He pauses for a moment, and I take a breath, my cheeks burning hot. He hasn’t told me the entire story yet, but I already know I want to murder this bitch.
“As soon as she looked it over, she became hysterical. She told me I didn’t love her and even went as far as to say I didn’t care about our baby. She asked how she was supposed to survive on a million dollars a year for the rest of her life if we got divorced. She left the apartment, and I had no idea where she went. She didn’t take her car, and she left her phone, so I couldn’t track her. Somehow, she managed to ditch her bodyguard.
“She was gone for three weeks. I had no idea whether she was dead or alive. If our unborn child was okay. My dad was the only one who knew she’d gone. I didn’t want to get my brothers involved. He was so sick with worry, too.
“Then, three weeks later, she showed up at the apartment and asked if I had reconsidered the prenup. At that point, I was so fucked up in the head that I would have given her my entire fortune just to keep her and the baby in my life. My dad told me he was suspicious and suggested I have a private investigator look into her.
“I hired a guy. Within twenty-four hours, he sent me numerous videos of her coming and going at multiple hotel rooms with different men over the previous few weeks, often with glasses of wine in her hand. When I confronted her, she cried and told me the pregnancy was a lie to get me to marry her. I wanted a family so badly, to experience what my parents had, and she wanted to be rich and famous. She didn’t give a shit about anything else. I was just the ticket she was hoping to ride to the lifestyle she wanted.”
I blink several times.
What.
The.
Fuck?
“I had to…” Xander pauses and clears his throat. I squeeze his arm, unable to stop myself from trying to comfort him.Somehow. “I had to tell my dad that he wasn’t going to be a grandpa. I swear, I watched his heart break before my very eyes. And mine was shattered right along with it. Once I got her out of my apartment, I went through a dark time. My dad and my brothers were there for me, but only Dad knew what had really happened. I was ashamed and embarrassed. I fell for all the bullshit of the perfect family life she fed me.”
“Then, he was killed three months ago.” He goes quiet, and it nearly kills me because the pain in his voice is agonizing. I can see how hard this is to tell me, and I want to hold him and hug him and promise him it will all be okay. I’m just not sure it ever will be.
How do I ask if he has a problem with alcohol? How do I tell him that, as much as I like him, I can’t be around that? Not all the time. Not around someone with an addiction they refuse to acknowledge.
“I miss him so much. I love my brothers. They’re my best friends. But my dad was so much more than that. He was the one person I could always count on.”
A mix of emotions swirls inside me, and I need to see his face. To look into his beautiful, lost eyes and tell him that it will be okay. But how can I say that? He lost his dad and some cunt of a woman… No, she doesn’t even deserve to be called a woman. That fucking bitch tricked him. With a fake baby.
What kind of person does that?
How can she even live with herself?
I’ve never wanted to get my hands on someone so badly in my life.
That bitch… she needs to pay for what she did.
“Where is she now?” I ask quietly.
Xander goes tense for a minute before he strokes my arm again. “I don’t know.”
I let out a sigh. “Maybe you should give me your private investigator’s number because I want to find her. I want to strangle her and watch her face turn blue until she stops breathing.”
Burying his face in my hair, he kisses my neck. “The chances of me ever giving you Cassian’s, or any man’s, number, for that matter, are fucking zero, sunshine. I don’t share. And. I.Especially.Don’t. Share.You.”
Shivers run all through my body down to my toes.
Especially me?
Wait…
“Did you say Cassian? That was my ride-share driver’s name tonight.”
CHAPTER 31
Xander
SO DEAD
