Page 175 of The Pucking Wrong Man

On the other hand, she was obviously still very upset about it.

Which I didn’t like for us. At all.

“Yes or no. I want to hear you say it.” Her chin was up and her fists were clenched.

“I did have something to do with that,” I finally said, not ashamed of anything I’d done, least of all that.

She slowly closed her eyes, squeezing them like she was trying to hold all of her emotion in. I hated this.

Even without all of the other things Michael had done, I would have destroyed him for this.

“I just don’t understand how you could do that,” she said, a tear sliding down her cheek that felt like a knife in my fucking gut.

“You really can’t?” I asked gently.

My phone buzzed in my pocket as a text came in, and then another. Walker was probably pleading for Olivia’s chicken. The food that Anastasia and I were supposed to deliver—together.

“You were working yourself to the bone, being paid practically nothing. You weren’t listening to reason,” I told her. “You would have worked there until you passed out and they had to scrape your body off the floor.”

She winced at that. “It was still my choice though! You took that away!”

I had taken a lot of choices away from her. But in my defense...she was making a lot of bad ones at that point in time.

My phone buzzed again.

“I want to talk about this with you. We can talk about it all night until you feel better,” I told her softly. “But we should go give Olivia the food she wants. You were really excited about that…remember?”

Her chin lifted even higher, and I sighed because her inner brat had decided to rear her head.

“I think—I think I just need some time to think. Maybe I’ll go back to the studio for a bit.” She held up her hand like she knew what I was thinking. “I’ll bring Freya with me, of course.” She bit down on her lip, shifting on her feet anxiously. “I’m just going to change into some clean dance clothes.”

I rubbed my face tiredly because this next part wasn’t going to be fun.

Following her into the closet, I tried to reason with her one more time. “You’ve been desperate to see the baby. Just come with me and we can talk about this.”

She shook her head. “I’m so mad at you,” she said in a broken voice. “I…I can’t be around you right now.”

I sighed. “Alright, baby girl. I’ll give you some time.” I walked over to try and brush a kiss against her cheek, and she flinched away.

Anastasia obviously wanted to be spanked.

I walked out of the closet and bedroom, and locked the door behind me.

I’d thought it was a construction defect that the lock was put on the wrong way on the master bedroom.

Turns out it was divine providence.

I was halfway down the hall when she realized the door was locked.

“Camden!” she yelled through the door, and I had to take a deep, calming breath to keep walking toward the elevator.

“Here’s your time to get your head on straight,” I called behind me.

She screamed in response.

Then the banging began. She alternated between yelling and hitting the door.

It was fucking awful.

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