Page 20 of Owen (Storm Enterprises)

Her cheeks heat, and I follow the flush down to her rapidly rising chest. It gives away how much my presence affects her.Look at me, baby girl, I plead.

She clears her throat and pushes back in her chair, and the scrape of it against the floor echoes around us. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to use the restroom.” Then she rises from her chair, and I watch her ass sway as she turns and walks away. The way she’s always been so ignorant as to how she draws attention in a room has always astonished me, and nothing has changed. She’s still the sweet girl I fell for when I shouldn’t have.

“That’s my wife you’re eye-fucking.” My focus snaps toward Carlos, who sits with his legs parted and his arm over the vacated chair, a smug smile on his cocky face. “Tell me, Mr. Stevens, why is it you reached out to a colleague of mine?”

He drags a finger over his lip. “Nico was insistent on me meeting with you. Why is that?”

“Because I commanded it. Tell me, Mr. Andreas, did Nico insist on you bringing Laya too?”

His lip rises. “No, that was my doing.”

“And why is that?”

“I need my wife to be assured I have no issues with your past, because it’s just that. The past.”

I throw my head back on a mocking laugh, then stare straight back at him. “If you believe that, then you’re a fool.”

He gives no reaction, and it irks me. The prick is a mask of indifference.

“I do believe that. My wife and I have a common interest. We want to raise our children as a family unit, unlike our own turbulent upbringings, and we’ll both do everything in our power to achieve it.”

The confidence behind his voice has me fighting to remain calm, and the way he talks about children as if they have a future together beyond this one child has me seeing red, but still, somehow, I remain seated. Something tells me Carlos would be happy for me to explode, to give Laya the perfect excuse to keep me away. I glance around the room. He’s brought at least six men with him, and a sudden awareness comes over me. This is exactly what he wanted. He wanted me to lose my shit, to make a scene, to go to war for her. That way, he had a reason to keep her away from her family, to keep us at a distance.

With that knowledge in mind, I decide to push back. “That’s right, you were brought up in the cartel, right?” His glare on me intensifies. Now he knows I’m just as aware of his background as he is mine. “Your father was killed alongside two of your brothers by a rival family, and you witnessed the whole thing. The Garcia family took you in, and now you intend to rebuild your father’s empire, creating a legacy in blood just like him. Does Laya know her son will be heir to a ruthless drug lord and calculated killer?”

The man looks fit to combust, all premise has fallen, his true self revealed, and I revel in it. He sits forward, leaning over the table. “Our son.” His eyes drill into mine. “Mine and Laya’s.”

I lean back in my chair, my stare not leaving his. “We’ll see.”

His eyes widen slightly, taken aback at my repute. “Is that a threat, Mr. Stevens?”

I lift an eyebrow, then lean forward. The stare-off between us feels catalytic. At any point, one of us could explode and the room would become a bloodbath, but not yet. “It’s a promise. A storm is coming, Carlos, and when the dust settles, you’ll be nothing but ash. But don’t worry, I’ll look after Laya and our son.” Then I settle back into the chair as if I didn’t just threaten to destroy him and take his family away in one fell swoop.

At the sound of Laya’s approaching footsteps, he pushes back on his chair and stands, then leans over the table.

“I promise you this, whatever you have planned, shewillfind out, and she will hate you for it. Ask yourself this, can you live with her hating you because of your jealousy, Mr. Stevens, my son’s hate too? Because if you can, go ahead and bring your storm. Her heart will always remain mine, our son’s too.”

He throws down a wad of cash on the table, then turns toward Laya. Her eyes dart from mine to his while he pastes on a smile I can only assume is reserved solely for her, and fuck me if she doesn’t smile back at him while he glides his arm around her waist and steers her out the door.

They get into the SUV, and though I feel her slipping away once again, I know the next time we meet will be our forever.

SIX

LAYA

The door to the SUV closes behind me, and Carlos walks around the other side. He slides inside casually, but the moment the door slams shut, the car becomes heated under his glare. “Did he give you the necklace?” His eyes dart toward the necklace, and there’s hurt mixed with rage in his eyes, and I hate myself for it, but stupidly, my hand moves toward it. “Fucking answer me! Did you take me, your husband and father of your child, to dinner with your ex-lover’s necklace around your neck?”

A whimper catches in my throat, not because he’s scaring me, but because I hurt him. For years, I’ve kept it around my neck like a treasure. In Owen’s eyes, it was probably a sign of my pathetic devotion, and in my husband’s eyes, a sign of my betrayal. “Mi amorrrr.” His voice has an unhinged edge to it, one that sends a shiver down my spine, one I’ve not heard until today, and the thought has a gnawing ball of anxiety throbbing inside me.

I know this looks like I’m not over Owen, that I’m holding onto the past when my future should lie with him.

“Yes,” I breathe out, averting my eyes as guilt rolls in my stomach like acid.

His face twists in disgust, then in a flash, his hand snaps the chain from around my neck as my heart slams in my chest, making it difficult for me to breathe through the shock of his actions.

Satisfaction flashes behind his eyes as I stare at him with my mouth agape, and desperation to repair the betrayal of me taking the necklace off floods me.

My heart hammers precariously, and I feel the need to reassure him of where my loyalty lies—with the father of our unborn baby—no matter how much it pains me to sever the only connection I have with Owen.

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