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Coming face to face with him has it all rushing back at once.
When I don’t respond, he smirks. “Damn, Eilish. You’re looking gorgeous.”
I want to throw up. Or fade away into dust. Or scream. Or possibly all three.
“You know, I’ve been meaning to reach out personally after my father and your uncle touched base.”
He shrugs, grinning at me like we’re old pals. Like he’s only my ex-boyfriend and not the face of my nightmares.
I flinch as he moves closer to me.
“Look, Eilish…” he shakes his head. “What happened before…I mean, we were kids, yeah? Just stupid kids fucking around. You know how it is. Awkward teenage years, amirite?”
He flashes me a thousand-watt JFK smile.
I suddenly very much wish I was Lee Harvey Oswald.
“Just kids fucking around…?” I echo numbly, staring at him.
A shadow flickers behind his all-American bright blue eyes.
“Exaaactly,” he says slowly and quietly, a hint of warning in his voice. “It’s easy to look back at something like that and cast blame. But who can say who did what? You know?”
I’m going to be sick. I can say exactly “who did what”. My body goes cold and numb, my pulse thudding in my ears.
“WhatIthink, Eilish,” he growls, moving closer, “is that what’s best here is to look to the future. Don’t let what you think happened in the past govern you. The two of us, going forward? I mean, the power of our families combined, we’re talking adynastyhere…”
I flinch when his hand lands on mine as it clings to the bar. The room spins and blurs as he leans close.
“And of course, Eilish,” he growls quietly. “Don’t forget about, well…you know.”
His leverage. His hold on me. The nightmare I’ve tried to erase from my mind and push down in the hopes I can forget about it.
But I can’t.
It’s always there.
Hestillhas the means to destroy me.
“Good,” Brooks mutters. “I feel we’re on the same page. Now, I’m thinking next week we should set up a meeting with my father and his people, and we can go over—”
Brooks squeals like a stuck pig as he’s suddenly ripped away from me. A dark, malevolent shape hurls him away into the crowd, which scatters to let him crash to the floor.
Then, the dark, hulking shape whirls on me with violence and fire brimming in his gunmetal gray eyes, and my heart stops for a second.
Gavan.
Part of me wants to hug him for shattering that horrible moment with Brooks. But another part of me has me squinting at him, my lips curled in a sneer.
“How the hell did you find me?”
It’s hardly the right response right now, given how furious he looks. But fuck that.
His eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”
“Were you spying on me?” I snap. “Was that your guy before at the bar?”
Gavan’s jaw clenches. “I can and alwayswillfind you,” he says icily. “Especially when you’re ignoring my simple—”
