Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)(34)

She waited for a few seconds, her chest pumping, her heart slamming furiously against her ribs.

“Aren’t they getting in?” she finally asked.

“Not yet.”

She looked out the tinted windows to see three broad backs. Good. “Then maybe you can explain to me why I have bus tracks all over my fucking back when all I did tonight was come here to do something nice for you and your father. How dare you introduce me to that surgeon as your fiancé! How dare you tell your father I moved in with you! How dare you announce that we’ve decided to have babies together! Lukas! Do you have any idea how I feel right now? How fucking furious I am?”

He was staring at her with an alarmingly empty expression on his face, but his jaw was jumping every few seconds. “You live with a man?”

The quiet malice in his tone had her sitting back with a thump. Her lungs were burning, and her face felt hot as hell. “What?”

“Answer the question.”

The slowly spoken demand had her immediately identifying with anyone he’d ever interrogated and did what she was told. “I did. Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Four months.”

He winced. “You shared his bed for four months?”

Was this guy for real? “No.”

He came forward so quickly her eyes fluttered. “You will tell me this story without prompts from me, Magdalena. Or I will send my men to your former home with instructions to disarm the warning system and burn the goddamn building to the ground while the tenants sleep in their beds. Do you want that on your conscience?”

Her face cooled remarkably fast as the blood left her head. “If you overreact like this all the time, why ever would I trust you enough to marry you and have your children?” Not that she was considering it.

Calm stole over him from one blink to the next. “You’re right. I am overreacting again.” He stroked his hands over her shoulders and down her arms to the tips of her fingers before sitting back in his seat. “You do that to me, and I can tell you, it isn’t as unpleasant as you might think.” He waved a hand for her to speak.

She didn’t. It was as if her saliva had turned to glue and sealed her mouth shut. She wasn’t a toy monkey. Put a coin in and watch her go. He could go fuck himself.

She wrapped her arms around her middle and looked out the window.

Aaaand after what must have been the longest four or five minutes of her falling-apart life, she brought her attention back to him. He was waiting. His hooded gaze rested on her, his grey eyes hungry, predatory. His hands were folded one over the other in his lap.

“I could stare at you all night.” His tone was gravely, the edges rough and invasive. “Take your time. Gather your thoughts. And tell me about him.”

So much of the fight left her in that moment. She wanted to tell him about Liam. After all, what was there to hide? Only the one small detail. “I teach yoga at a studio during the day, and he’s a regular in my class. I moved in with him because I was ready to…leave home, and we eventually slept together. Apparently, he needed more than I would ever have given him, and he just might find it with the girl I came home to find him cuddling with on the sofa.”

His hands fisted so hard his knuckles turned white. “What’s this boy’s name?”

She frowned, thinking of blond, blue-eyed Liam who’d turned twenty-seven this past January. “This boy?”

“A man is not disloyal. A boy is.” He took his phone out and waited with his finger poised over a blank page. “Did you love him?”

She made a face. As if. “Considering I haven’t thought about him once since moving out, I can honestly say no. I liked him. He was a friend of sorts.”

“Of sorts.”

“Yes. I don’t have those.”

His brows drew together. “Friends.”

She nodded.

“Why?”

She shrugged and looked out the window.

“When was it you found him with the girl?”

“Today. Well, technically, it was yesterday.”

His expression lost its killing edge, softening as he lowered the phone to his lap. “You’ve had a busy day.”

“Yes, I have,” she admitted, feeling maddeningly weepy because his voice had gone all squishy.

“You’re handling it beautifully.”

A ball of emotion lodged in her throat and she wanted to take a fork to it. She would not go all girlie with this guy! “Thanks,” she shoved out. “An explanation or two from you would be helpful. Feel like offering it now?”

“When you give me his name.”

She shrugged again. Not happening. Liam didn’t deserve a wedge of glass jammed into his brain. “Never mind. By the way, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your father. Sometimes I talk before thinking, and I did that earlier.”

She was gifted one of his rare full smiles that made her entire body sing.

“You did not embarrass me, Magdalena. Quite the opposite.”

“I told your father we were going home to fuck, Lukas.” She looked to make sure their goons weren’t listening. “I can’t believe I did that.” She dropped her face into her hands because she was impatient to get to it. Gawd. “Just kill me now.” She reached out and put a hand on his knee. “Not for real though.”