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He’s not. This is all you.
My nipples are swollen and aching with desire for him.
A tiny, shrill voice in my head, a voice that sounds a lot like my mother’s, chastises me.Am I going to let him do this to me? I’m not going to fight him at all?I’m engaged. I’m going to be married soon.
Landon never made me feel like this… the heat licking up my legs and melting my pussy, the curl of desire in my belly, the breathless anticipation…
“I’m going to destroy you,” he whispers into my ear, and my heart freezes.
CHAPTER14
Camille
It’slike a bucket of ice-cold water has been poured over my head.
What did he say?
I pray I heard him wrong because Bastien doesn’t make idle threats.
When he steps back, I look up into his eyes and see the purest, darkest hate. I’ve worked with some scary patients, but Bastien’s expression is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Even more frightening is the fact that one moment he could nuzzle me and kiss me like a lover, and the next, he could scorch the skin from my body with the heat of his rage.
“Why?” I gasp.
“You have to ask?” His lip curls in scorn. “You destroyed me with your lies. You told the police you saw me stabbing that rat.”
Tears prick my eyes at the memory. “I did see you stabbing it!” I cry out.
He slaps me so hard that I see stars, and then grabs me by the throat, squeezing like he might well and truly kill me right here. “You lying bitch. You saw me standing next to the body of that rat with a knife in my hand. You did not see me in the act of stabbing it.”
I claw at his hands, struggling to breathe. The room swims in front of me, and then he opens his hand a little. Oh God. He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die here. I don’t want to die. My heart pounds so hard I can’t believe it hasn’t leaped from my chest. He eases up just enough to let me speak.
“What’s the difference?”
“Because Idid notstab that rat or any rat for that matter.” I stare up at him. His gaze is intense. He looks as if he’s telling the truth, but I know what I saw.
“I was waiting to meet you and stumbled across a man who I heard was up to no good. I’d heard rumors about a man who liked to torture… things. I followed him, and I killed him. Gutted him like a fish and watched him die. Then I went back to the place where he took all of his kills. I was going to give all those rats a decent burial.”
I stare at him as the breath dries up in my lungs. His eyes bore into me, drilling into my soul. Making it bleed. He just told me he killed a man as if that’s better than the rats.
In his mind, it probably is.
“Think about it,” he growls. “That rat had been dead for days when it was found. But nobody even stopped to think about that because you were all so eager to stamp me with the psychopath label and write me off forever.”
I think back to the that day and the look I saw on Bastien’s face, and the horrible realization hits me.
“You’re telling the truth,” I whisper.Oh no. What did I do?Tears flood my eyes. “I didn’t mean to… I thought…”
“I got a look at the police report.” The hate in his eyes makes me want to die. “You told the police officer you saw mestabbingthe rat, and that was the end of my life as I knew it. Ever since that day, my parents were genuinely afraid I was going to snap and kill somebody. They had me followed by a bodyguard every minute of every day, even when I was with my brothers and sisters. Like I would have hurt someone from my own family. A bodyguard stood outside my door at night. I was institutionalized. Pulled out of school permanently. Your lies destroyed me.”
He lets go of my neck and steps back.
I try to remember what I told thegendarme. Did I tell him that I actually saw Bastien doing it? I might have since I was in such a state. I think I did. I screamed something like, “I saw him kill that rat!”
In a daze, instinctively, I sink to my knees before him. I’m overwhelmed with guilt and sorrow. I ruined his life. I ruinedus.But how could I have known? What would anyone have thought if they stumbled in on him in a damn basement with a knife in his hand like that, surrounded by death?
He grabs me by the hair and pulls me to my feet, and I cry out in pain. I claw at his hands, but he just slams my head back against the wall again. Hot pain flares from the back of my head. “No,” he snaps. “You don’t get to go down on your knees for me. You’ve lost that privilege.”
I’m crying hysterically. “So you’re going to kill me now?”
