Page 106 of Beautiful Dangerous

“Have you and Celine started packing yet?”

I keep my back to him as I pull out the top drawer of the dresser in the walk-in closet. “I’m sorting things out now. I don’t know about Celine. She’s excited to be moving back to Mexico, so I suspect she’s packed already.”

“And what about you, Olivia? Are you not excited?”

I slowly turn around, laying the handful of scarves I’ve just pulled from the dresser down onto the deep-purple, velvet footstool in the center of the closet. “It’s difficult to be excited about something you’re in no hurry to do.”

He drops his head and laughs, sliding his hands into his pockets, and I turn away and go back to the dresser, pulling out more scarves and a selection of bracelets.

“You just need more time, Olivia. To adjust to this new life we’re going to be living.”

I lay the scarves and the bracelets on the already growing pile of clothes on the footstool, and I look at him with as much disdain as I can muster. I already made the decision to not bow to his controlling shit, I’m not doing that. Walking into his world made me strong, losing him made me even stronger, I’m not letting his surprise return make me into the weak-willed woman he quite obviously wants me to be.

“I thought I had no choice, at first.”

He stares at me through narrowed eyes as I walk toward him, keeping one scarf in my hands, twisting it between my fingers.

“But I still have choices.”

“You can’t fight what’s happening here, Olivia.”

“If you would rather spend your life with a woman who can’t love you the way you want her to love you, that’s up to you…”

He grabs my wrist, yanking it upward, his dark eyes almost black with rage as they lock on mine. “You have so much to learn…”

“Like what, Javier? What do I have to learn, hmm? How to become the submissive bitch your ego needs me to be now? How to sink into the shadows, become nothing more than a vessel to bear your children? I’m forty years old, there isn’t a lot of time left for that dynasty you seem in such a hurry to create to happen now.”

He forces my arm up higher, causing a sharp pain to shoot up from my shoulder, but I don’t let him see that he’s hurting me.

“I used to love you, so much,” I whisper, and I take the nanosecond of time he allows for his grip to loosen on my wrist, snatching my arm from his grasp, pushing him back against the wall, the satisfaction I get from the surprise on his face urging me on. “I used to fucking worship you, but now I’m beginning to wonder if that was nothing more than me being blinded by your control.”

He sneers, his fingers trying desperately to regain their grip on my wrist, but he’s forgetting the woman I am now, and before he can take another breath I’ve got the scarf pulled tight across the front of his neck.

“You might think you can keep me prisoner, Javier, but that’s just not going to happen. You want a new start in Mexico? Fine. We go there, I forget about Lucca, we put all this shit behind us. But if you think it’s all going to be on your terms, you’re wrong. I’m not going to be some trophy wife, and what’s more, people won’t accept me as that. They know me now, they know what I can do, I’ve earned so much respect from so many people it would make your head spin, so don’t for one moment think you have any control over me. You don’t. You won’t.” I push the scarf tighter against his throat, and once again he sneers and laughs and I have the greatest urge to push harder; to wrap it around his fucking neck and pull it until I’ve pushed the last breath from his body, but that isn’t who I am. I went to bed feeling defeated and woke up with a renewed energy to fight fire with fire, I can do this. And even though it’s a fight I might not be able to win outright, I can at least make sure it’s an even battle.

We lock eyes, and I feel everything from fear to a warped excitement flood through me as I finally step back from him, but he stays where he is, he remains calm as I go back to sorting through the neat pile forming on the footstool.

“You want to continue running the cartel, alongside me?”

“I think you know that’s what I want.”

What I really want is to leave this fucking life behind, and start a new one, with Lucca, somewhere so far away from here, but I can’t do that now. I’m not stupid, I can’t have it all my way, but I’m sure as hell not giving everything up.

“It isn’t what I had planned.”

I look at him. “Plans don’t always work out the way you want them to.”

“So it would seem.” He moves a little closer, but I’m not afraid of him. He doesn’t scare me anymore. “What are you doing with those?”

“I can’t take everything with me. And a lot of this stuff I haven’t worn in years. I thought I’d give some of it to charity, Celine knows of places that would be extremely grateful for my donations. And most of that jewelry there, it’s only costume.”

A heavy silence hangs in the air as I continue to pack away the things for Celine to take with her.

“I can’t make you any promises, Olivia…”

“Try.”

He frowns, and I push past him, back out into the bedroom, there are a few things in there I have no use for anymore. Celine can have those, too.

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