Page 76 of Taming Achilles

“Did that happen before or after Callum dumped you?”

None of that mattered. He had just claimed me in front of the world, and I wasn’t sure how to handle that. Would his other girlfriends see that?

He pulled me in, the thin, but stiff body armour keeping us from moulding into one another. He whispered against my ear, “there’s no one in the world but you and me.”

He planted a kiss on my temple, and I smiled. My darling man. Bliss.

Until I spied the white van over his shoulder. A simple, white, bread van tucked into an alleyway. The man in the driver’s seat wore a low, black baseball cap and sunglasses. He had a black tactical turtleneck, the look of so many spies who were there to take out proverbial garbage, and black gloves.

I blinked, but the vision didn’t go away.

This was real.

The side door of the van slid open. A familiar man in a suit stepped out. We had the same high, flat cheeks, tall, slim build. There was an arch of a brow that I had inherited from him. Had he been a decade younger, his hair would have been the same strawberry blond as mine. Instead, his was white. His face was a wrinkled tan, formed from his time in the Gulf.

My father, Sir Victor Fox.

Maybe … maybe he wasn’t here to dispose of me. Maybe my father found a single paternal bone in his body and gave his only child a moment of leniency. Perhaps, for once in my thirty-seven years of life, he was granting me some grace and wasn’t actually here to get rid of me for no longer being an asset in his Sideshow.

Maybe. Maybe? Maybe…

He grasped his hands in front of his face, his head tilted in a gentle way. Then he smiled. A comforting smile.

My knees almost buckled underneath me. Because I knew that kindness was a confirmation of my death sentence. He acted like he was luring a skittish horse to the glue factory.

The paps were getting bored, on their phones or scrolling through the pictures on their large black cameras. Everyone was melting back into their lives and their quiet morning, and we’re losing interest in our little show.

My only choice was to die with dignity, or to grovel to a father who had never given me mercy. I chose dignity. Because when the fall is all that’s left, it was the only thing that mattered.

Maybe his first parental act would be the final one. When he drowned me in cold water.

Who was I kidding? The goon in the driver's seat would probably be the one to do it. Baronet Victor Fox was far too important for such wet work.

“Love?” Geo’s head tilted down, as he smiled at me, clueless to the ticking countdown of my last breath.

“Thank you,” I said, quickly. Blurting it out before the chance evaporated like smoke. “For last night. For the last twenty-five years.” I embraced Geo around the torso, the armour stiff and flat as we pressed together, robbing me of a chance to mould my body into him. But it didn’t matter. I was holding him.

“Pip?” His hand came up to my face. He tilted my chin up so I would look at him. “What’s wrong, my love?”

“Nothing,” I smiled. This would have to be my greatest performance, before the curtain came down and there would be no encore. Nothing but an empty stage. “Would you get me a hot chocolate from the coffee shop?”

I had to get him away from me. I couldn’t get into that van with him looking. I wouldn’t have the strength. And he wouldn’t allow it. He’d fight, and they would hurt him.

Geo kissed my forehead, then went to do as I asked, but still held my hand.

“Come on,” he said with a smile, trying to tug me into the shop.

“I want to stay out here to enjoy the sunshine,” I said, turning my head towards the sun and closing my eyes.

“Pippa!” It was Callum’s voice, his Dodgers cap still obscured his familiar features, but his eyes were on my father. “Don’t fucking move!”

Geo looked at him, then at me. Back and forth, as he tried to figure out what had made his friend break his cover. What could be so important that Callum would reveal himself?

The paps saw him, and braced for a confrontation between an old fiancée and a new one. They started buzzing anew, asking loaded questions and clicking their cameras.

“How do you feel about your best friend screwing your ex?”

“Did you call off the wedding because they were fucking?”

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