Page 68 of His Wild Seduction

“Shh. Baby, I believe you. I know you told me the truth,” I interrupted.

I couldn’t stand to let her think I didn’t trust her.

“I just couldn’t do this with anyone else,” she said.

“I’m glad,” I told her, knowing I sounded like a dick.

“Wait, how do you know I’m not lying?” she asked.

“Because I had my team hunt down every man you ever dated, and they interrogated them.”

“What?”

“I won’t apologize for it, Meredith. I needed to know,” I said, feeling as though I just closed a door on something.

Fuck.

“You could have just asked,” she murmured, and I could feel the hurt rolling off her.

I said nothing.

How could I reply to that?

When Meredith tried to move off me again. I allowed it.

“I know what we have is unconventional, but I’m a person, Josef. I have feelings. I don’t lie. And if you want to know something, you should ask. Or I should tell you. Excuse me, I have to use the bathroom,” she said, sounding choked.

Fuck.

However close we’d been moments ago, even if it was mostly physical, I couldn’t help but feel like an ocean had just sprouted between us.

Good thing I can swim.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MEREDITH

“You’re just like your whore mother! Giving it away to every guy who blinks at you! Slut! You ruined everything!”

“Dad? What are you saying?”

“Dad? Don’t call me that! I’m not your father! I never was. Your whore mother tricked me. But look at you, Meredith. The evidence of another man’s DNA is written all over you.”

I cried. Shocked and horrified by what the man I thought was my father said to me.

His face was frightening. Sweat dotted his brow. A crazed sort of drunken madness glittered in eyes nothing like mine.

“You’re gonna write a note, telling him it was a just a game.”

“No!”

“Yes, you will. You’ll do it or Josef will die! I know people. You know I do. Now write!”

My hand shook as I held the pen and his fingers dug into the back of my neck as he held me in place. His breath stunk of booze, and it made me want to puke.

“Since you’re giving it away. Why not?” he grunted, pulling on the neckline of my shirt.

I screamed and backed up, but his grip never wavered. He tore it. And his clammy hands closed over my breast.

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